By Christopher Magan
Star Tribune
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Ramsey County is ready to pay $3.6 million to the family of a man who died from a brain hemorrhage after screaming in pain while he was held at the county jail in August 2022.
In a federal civil rights and disability discrimination lawsuit, the family of Dillon Dean Bakke, 37, alleged he had visible injuries and was clearly suffering from a medical emergency, but did not receive proper treatment. He was held at the jail for three days before being found unresponsive in his cell and taken to Regions Hospital in St. Paul.
Bakke never regained consciousness and died from complications of a brain bleed 18 days later.
The Ramsey County Board is expected to approve the payment to settle the lawsuit at their next meeting Tuesday. The county and four jail staff were named in the lawsuit that was filed in 2023.
In a statement, Steve Linders, spokesman for the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office, said the county’s public health department oversees medical care at the jail, not the sheriff. He said corrections workers promptly notified medical staff about Bakke’s condition multiple times and he was assessed by public health personnel.
When a prisoner says they have sustained an injury or that they are having a medical emergency, there is only one course of action, explains risk management expert and Lexipol co-founder Gordon Graham in the video below.
“Our sympathies are with Mr. Bakke’s family. Everyone deserves competent medical care in jail,” Linders’ statement said.
County officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon. The county is self-insured, so the settlement money will come from taxpayers.
Rich Student, an attorney with Meshbesher and Student who represented Bakke’s family in the lawsuit, said he believes it is Minnesota’s largest settlement related to the death of a jail inmate. In November, Hennepin County agreed to pay $3.4 million to the family of Lucas Bellamy, who died of a perforated bowel in 2022.
“If you take somebody into your custody and you’re restricting their freedom, you are putting them behind your bars, you have an affirmative duty to provide them basic medical care,” Student said in an interview. “That falls through the cracks too often.”
Jail staff were aware Bakke suffered from the blood clotting disorder hemophilia when he was booked and knew he needed medication if he suffered any injury, Student said. Bakke began complaining of severe head pain roughly 12 hours after his Aug. 7, 2022, arrest for suspicion of drug possession.
According to Student, a nurse checked Bakke’s vitals because he was yelling in pain and prescribed ibuprofen. When he wouldn’t stop yelling, jail staff handcuffed Bakke and carried him to a segregation cell because he couldn’t stand or walk.
A guard told Bakke he would report his symptoms to someone on the medical staff, but never did, the lawsuit said. Bakke was found unresponsive in his cell the morning of Aug. 9 and taken to Regions Hospital.
Student said Bakke’s family wants him to be remembered as a “kind soul” who may have struggled but did “nothing wrong at the jail to deserve what happened to him.”
There have been a series of inmate deaths at Twin Cities jails in recent years.
In early 2023, the Minnesota Department of Corrections ordered Ramsey County to reduce the capacity of the jail because of concerns over staffing and inmate safety. The jail was allowed to return to full operations with a smaller capacity later that year.
In October 2024, Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt was ordered to reduce the capacity of the Hennepin County Jail for similar safety concerns. The County Board approved $5.4 million to house inmates in nearby jails in order to keep the population at the Minneapolis facility under 600 inmates.
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