Darius Robinson was strangled to death inside the Caddo County jail in the small town of Anadarko, Oklahoma, this past April. According to the autopsy report released last week, the cause of death was manual compression of his neck. A heavily redacted jail incident report says that Robinson, who had been arrested on a child support warrant from 2008, was tearing up his cell and eating paper. Two officers entered the cell to check on him, the report says, and Robinson began speaking incoherently and attempted to “get passed both detention officers and that’s when he was taken to the ground.” A chokehold was used to subdue Robinson, hence the neck compression/strangulation. At the time the chokehold was applied, Robinson had been handcuffed and covered in pepper spray.

The Daily Beast has done a lengthy report on Robinson’s death, noting that a camera was installed in his cell and should have recorded the entire incident. Robinson’s brother, Ancio, met with the undersheriff of the jail in an attempt to get answers. Few were forthcoming:

“[Undersheriff Spencer Davis] leaned back in his chair, pushed his cowboy hat back on his head and just old me ‘Sometimes these things happen here,’” Ancio said. “Just like that. With monotone. It was very unsettling to me.” No one from the Caddo County Sheriff’s Office responded to a request for comment. Davis recounted what he knew about Robinson’s death, Ancio said, but admitted there was a “blank spot” in the video that may have shown the fatal chokehold that was used on Ancio’s brother, killing him.

Robinson’s death is being investigated by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Once that investigation is complete, the case may or may not be turned over to a grand jury, and the video of Robinson in his cell at the time of his death may also be released at that time.

The Daily Beast article also notes that Robinson was not the first inmate to die in Caddo County Jail, and highlights a number of inmate lawsuits filed against the institution. Many of those lawsuits were unfortunately dismissed.

What happens inside jails and prisons, even when cameras are present, remains shrouded in secrecy to those of us on the outside. Calls for accountability and transparency, which are becoming the new normal for police shootings, must also ring out inside the country’s penal facilities.