20176909-mmmain.jpg

A photo card for Jerry Bradley's funeral, above the Springfield Police internal investigation report into his death in custody.

SPRINGFIELD -- For seven months, Olethia Bradley has not known precisely how her brother died.

Jerry Bradley, a Tennessee native turned decade-long resident of Springfield's Old Hill neighborhood, was picked up by Springfield police on a warrant the evening of Sept. 11, 2015. It was for an old charge, his sister said: an unpaid fine out of Dudley District Court for writing a bad check.

The 57-year-old handyman and odd-job painter was supposed to spend the weekend in a police station holding area, with a trip to Dudley for his arraignment planned for Monday. He never left.

Bradley died of an aneurysm inside Springfield Police headquarters in the early morning hours of Sunday, Sept. 13. Police told his family his cause of death, and said there would be an investigation.

Since then, authorities have told the Bradleys and their lawyer almost nothing else of what happened that night, they said in interviews. But a MassLive review of an internal police investigation shows that while officers described Bradley as calm throughout the weekend, other prisoners said he was in visible pain and crying out for an ambulance the night before his death.

The family's requests for information went unheeded in the months following Bradley's death. The city denied attorney John Thompson's request for physical evidence in September, saying the investigation was ongoing.

"I just want to see the video, if they have a video of that night," Olethia Bradley said. "It's not that I'm trying to press charges against the police department. I just want the information of how long it took them to get an ambulance for my brother."

The department's internal investigation has since ended, but because Thompson did not file another request, the family was not provided with any additional information. Thompson did not receive a response from the Hampden County District Attorney's office when he asked them for information in January; that is because the District Attorney's investigation is ongoing, a spokesman for the DA said.

"Mr. Bradley's case remains open," James Leydon, spokesman for Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni, said in a statement. "Unfortunately, attorney Thompson's inquiry requires a response to a pending investigation."

And, prior to this story's publication, the sum total of public record on Bradley's death could be found in an appendix of last month's city report on Springfield's Community Police Hearing Board, in a group of entries on a spreadsheet, marked "investigate death of prisoner in his cell."

Of the seven officers investigated, two were suspended and five cleared, according to the report and statements from the city's law department.

The city and the police department would not say what specific actions led to the officers' suspensions, nor would they disclose their identities. The city's law office said the officers were suspended for 30 days without pay for violating the rules and regulations of the police department. When asked for comment, Police Commissioner John Barbieri said he could not comment on internal disciplinary matters.

But earlier this month MassLive obtained the internal affairs file on the case through a public records request, including statements from the officers and fellow prisoners who were the last company Bradley kept in his final hours.

What the records show is a man who spent 29 hours in police custody before an officer, during regular rounds after midnight on Sept. 13, found him unconscious and began futile attempts to save his life.

But there are also inconsistencies in the accounts given throughout the investigation.

According to the department's internal report, officers said they had no knowledge of any serious medical issues plaguing Bradley, but a prisoner one cell over told internal affairs investigators he heard Bradley yelling and asking for an ambulance that night. And an officer's account of an interview with Angela Williams -- Bradley's longtime girlfriend -- does not match Williams' recollection of their conversation, she told MassLive.

In Williams' apartment, which she shared with Bradley for a decade, boxes of his possessions -- clothes, paint, brushes, hardware -- still sit in her dining room, largely untouched since his death. She has not found the resolve to part with them, she said.

"I just walk past them, I can't do it," Williams said. "I keep thinking that man's going to turn his keys and come through that door."

The Springfield police station at 130 Pearl St.

The arrest

At 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 11, Bradley was in the passenger seat of a car pulled over on State Street in Springfield after an officer noticed a missing inspection sticker, according to an arrest report. The driver was arrested for operating with a suspended license, and Bradley was booked as well for a default warrant out of Dudley District Court.

Bradley was taken to police headquarters at 130 Pearl St., where he called Williams to say he would not be home that weekend, she said. It was the last time she would hear his voice.

"I said, 'I'd been waiting for you.' We said we loved each other. We hung up the phone," Williams said.

At booking, Bradley told a sergeant he had high blood pressure and gall bladder issues, according to the department's internal report. Bradley's first opportunity to make bail would be in Dudley on Monday, so he was taken to the station's holding area and placed in cell No. 9.

The man in the cell across from him and the officer making rounds gave different accounts of Bradley's health that night, according to the investigation report.

The other prisoner, whose name is redacted in the report, was placed in lockup around 2:10 a.m. Saturday. He and Bradley lived in the same neighborhood and were acquaintances, he told investigators. The two greeted each other, and then Bradley began to loudly demand medical treatment, he said.

"[The prisoner] stated that as a police officer walked by doing his 'rounds' Mr. Bradley would shout to the officer, 'I can't breathe, I need my treatment,'" the report said.

"You need to hold on, I need to do my round," the officer allegedly said, and never addressed Bradley's complaints, according to the other prisoner's account.

But the three officers assigned to booking that night did not report any complaints or requests for help from Bradley. Officer Brian Phillips -- who conducted all the cell checks that night, according to station records -- told investigators that nothing seemed amiss.

"I completed all the rings throughout the night with no issue," Phillips said, according to the report. "At no point during any of my rings was I asked, or notified of an issue regarding a Mr. Jerry Bradley housed in cell #9."

Another prisoner -- who happened to be a neighbor of Bradley and Williams -- arrived in the holding cells at about 5 a.m. Saturday. He was bailed out that afternoon, and as he was leaving his cell Bradley asked him for help, according to the prisoner's testimony.

"Can you call my wife, I need my medication, I need to get out of here," Bradley said, according to his neighbor.

His neighbor said he told Ramon Santana, the officer releasing him from his cell, that Bradley was a "sickly person." He did not know of any specific ailments but said he had seen Bradley taking medication outside his home.

Santana told investigators that the neighbor's account was inaccurate.

"While I was conducting these duties no prisoner or prisoners ever informed me of any medical problems," Santana wrote. "[Bradley's neighbor] never informed me [of] any medical problems pertaining to Mr. Bradley."

Saturday passed largely without incident until evening, according to the investigation report. Bradley told an officer he was suffering from back pain, according to both prisoner interviews and police statements; the officer then told his sergeant.

The officers working that evening told investigators that other than reporting back pain, Bradley showed no signs of distress until after midnight, when he was found unconscious. The officers monitored him after he said he was in pain, they said.

"Sgt. Bortolussi stated that officers Reyes and Dowd told him that [Bradley] was checked every 15 minutes and he appeared fine throughout the rest of the night," the internal report said.

A prisoner across the cell block from Bradley on Saturday night described a different chain of events.

The prisoner confirmed that Bradley had told an officer of back pain -- but he also said Bradley asked for an ambulance, and was told that one was on its way. No ambulance came until after midnight, when Bradley was unconscious.

"[The other prisoner] stated that later in the night Mr. Bradley woke up and started to bang on the glass for two hours, while screaming, 'This ain't right, call the ambulance,'" the report said.

At 11:30 p.m., officer Michael Rodriguez began his shift as the night's cell guard. His first two "rings" -- trips through the cells to check that prisoners are alive and breathing -- passed without incident.

On the third, things went wrong.

At about 12:12 a.m., Rodriguez noticed Bradley sitting on the floor of his cell. The prisoner across from him said that Bradley did not appear to be moving or breathing; he would later tell investigators that Bradley had begun to sweat, take off his shirt and drag himself along the cell floor before he started gasping for breath.

Rodriguez entered the cell and immediately notified his sergeant and began trying to save Bradley's life, he told investigators. That account was confirmed by the other prisoner, who said he heard Rodriguez yell for his sergeant and saw Rodriguez begin CPR and hook Bradley up to a defibrillator.

Paramedics soon arrived and took over resuscitation efforts. Bradley was taken to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, where doctors continued treatment until he was pronounced dead at 1:10 a.m.

According to Bradley's death certificate, he died of a ruptured thoracic aortic aneurysm. A medical examination and subsequent blood test found aneurysms in both his abdomen and heart, as well as severe hypertension and evidence of cocaine in his system.

Henderson's Funeral Home, where services for Jerry Bradley were held in September.

Seven months of doubt

Later that night, Angela Williams heard a knock at her door and saw the bobbing glow of flashlights. It was two Springfield police detectives, and they said her boyfriend was dead.

"They said we're sorry to tell you that he passed away," Williams said. "I was like, Can you say that again?"

They had already spoken with Bradley's sister, Olethia, who told them she was not aware of any medical issues he may have had. But Williams was, she said. Bradley had a tumor on his torso, near his heart, and she said she told the detectives of his diagnosis.

But in their report, the detectives said otherwise.

"Ms. Williams stated that she and [Bradley] have been in a relationship for over 13 years and is not aware of any medical conditions that [Bradley] may have," the report said.

Williams had previously not seen the police account of her statements, but after reviewing the officers' report during her interview with MassLive, she said it was false.

"He had a tumor. We knew this. That's why I told them," Williams said. "That is inaccurate."

Bradley was memorialized at Henderson's Funeral Home, less than a quarter mile from the apartment he shared with Williams. Thompson, the Bradley family's lawyer, attended the service; he had known Bradley for more than a dozen years, and had hired him for yard work and home maintenance projects.

"He was a guy I had a kind of casual friendship with," Thompson said. "He was a nice guy."

At the funeral, Thompson learned Bradley had died at police headquarters and that his family did not know exactly what had happened. He offered his services and began making inquiries, he said. He sent a letter to the city, asking for the preservation of all investigation records and for access to any video or audio recordings of Bradley's cell.

His request was rejected, with the city citing the ongoing nature of the investigation. He did receive a letter from Mayor Domenic Sarno, expressing condolences, he said.

"I certainly don't have the [internal investigation unit] report," Thompson said. "I've asked for it and have not been able to get it."

City Solicitor Ed Pikula told MassLive last week that no videos existed of Bradley during his time in lockup.

"Due to concerns over privacy, security cameras are not used to monitor individual cells," Pikula wrote in an email.

There is no longer an ongoing investigation, but the city has not given the report to the family because Thompson did not file a follow-up request once the investigation was finished, he wrote.

"A records custodian is not required to create a record in response, and requests for public records are not considered 'continuing' under the public records law," Pikula wrote. "However, attorney Thompson was informed that such records would be retained in accord with applicable records retention requirements."

Neither Thompson or the family were told that the investigation had been completed, or that two officers were suspended, until MassLive reached them for interviews. The inquiry was initiated by the police department, not by an external complaint, Pikula wrote.

Thompson has not filed a lawsuit; he does not have cause to do so yet. He, and Bradley's family, would need to be let out of the dark first, he said.

"The first question is, what happened to this man? It's been six months and nobody that's close to him has been given the basic courtesy," Thompson said. "This has been pretty much a stone wall we've been dealing with for the past six months."

Bradley and his sister Olethia were born in Tennessee. They moved to Springfield in the 1970s, following their older sister, Olethia said. They made lives for themselves and stayed ever since.

"When he first got here, he worked in a foundry," she said. "Then he worked on a garbage truck for a while. He started doing odds and ends jobs."

Williams met him in 2003 after seeing him around the neighborhood -- at the store, or while he was working on nearby houses. "There was something about him," she said. They began dating, and moved in together 10 years ago.

"They just need to come forth and tell us something," Williams said. "We have the right to know that. We need to know."