Jacob Carpenter

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee County sheriff's officials are denying any legal responsibility in the July 2016 death of a newborn at their downtown jail, court records show.

Lawyers for sheriff's administrators say Shadé Swayzer, who's suing the Sheriff's Office and its medical provider, "was negligent with respect to her own well-being" in the hours before her newborn died in a jail cell. Swayzer has claimed a jail staff member ignored and laughed at her cries for help as she went into labor.

Swayzer's child, Laliah, died hours after her birth. The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office has classified the cause of death as "undetermined," and no investigating agency has released any findings that explain how or why the newborn died.

Swayzer was about 8 months pregnant when she was arrested and subsequently put in solitary confinement. She said she went into labor in her cell about 12:15 a.m. and asked for help from a corrections officer, who refused to help. Swayzer said she gave birth about 4 a.m. and didn't receive any attention from jail staff until about 6 a.m.

Her child was pronounced dead at the jail about an hour later, after Milwaukee Fire Department responders unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate the newborn.

Lawyers for sheriff's administrators didn't elaborate on their account of the newborn's death, but they denied the allegations leveled by Swayzer. They added that the death "is the result of pre-existing injury or natural disease progression beyond the control of, and unrelated to the acts, omissions or conduct" of the Sheriff's Office. In prior statements, sheriff's officials have said Swayzer never called for help or medical attention, and she initially tried to conceal her child from a corrections officer.

The Sheriff's Office chose to investigate the death rather than seeking an outside review, as Swayzer's family wanted. Investigators have forwarded their findings to the District Attorney's Office, which is reviewing the case.

Four people died at the downtown jail last year, including inmate Terrill Thomas, whose cause of death was profound dehydration. In an interview published Thursday by British newspaper The Guardian, Sheriff David A. Clarke said Thomas' death "might be problematic," but he called criticism over the deaths of Laliah Swayzer and two other inmates a "manufactured issue" and "disguised political attack. An inquest has been ordered in the death of Thomas.

In November, a court-appointed physician monitoring the jail said Laliah Swayzer's death "raises several questions" about the oversight and housing of inmates. The physician, Ronald Shansky, didn't draw any conclusions about whether the actions of jail staff contributed to the newborn's death.