WS Chronicle

BY TEVIN STINSON 

THE CHRONICLE  

An inmate died while in custody last weekend according to the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office (FCSO).  

On Saturday, May 10, David Elliot Dickerson was found unresponsive at the Forsyth County Detention Center while FCSO staff were making rounds. Detention officers initiated CPR and medical personnel were requested. Following resuscitative efforts by both contract medical personnel from the Detention Center and Forsyth County Emergency Medical Staff, Dickerson could not be revived and was pronounced dead. 

The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation was contacted by the sheriff’s office to conduct their independent investigation into the incident, which is standard protocol.  

Dickerson, a 72-year-old white male, was arrested on Wednesday, May 7, for statutory sex offense with a child by an adult and indecent liberties with a minor. Dickerson is the second inmate to die after suffering a medical emergency in the Forsyth County Detention Center in the past two years.  

Christopher Ronald Boiling died in his cell on Nov. 22, 2023. An inmate alerted detention officers that Boiling, a 48-year-old white male, was suffering from a medical emergency. Life-saving measures were attempted by detention officers, a nurse and EMTs, but they were unsuccessful.  

In 2020, John Neville, an inmate at the Forsyth County Detention Center, suffered an “unknown medical condition” while he was asleep and fell from the top bunk in his cell onto the concrete floor.  

After seeing him lying on the floor shaking as if he was having a seizure, Neville’s cellmate pushed a panic button.  Shortly afterwards, detention officers and the on-call nurse arrived. They found Neville “disoriented and confused” and decided to move Neville into an observation cell so the on-duty nurse could determine what was wrong.   

While in the observation cell, officers used a prone restraint to try to get Neville to calm down. According to Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neil, what transpired over the next 45 minutes led to Neville’s death two days later in the hospital. Neville told officers at least 10 times, “I can’t breathe,” but they told him otherwise and unsuccessfully tried to remove his handcuffs. 

Neville’s death sparked protests throughout the city that lasted more than a month. 

Findings in that investigation, including video evidence, were turned over to the Forsyth County District Attorney’s Office. The autopsy conducted by Dr. Patrick Lantz of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center showed Neville died from “complications of hypoxic-ischemic brain injury due to cardiopulmonary arrest due to positional and compressional asphyxia sustained during the prone restraint.” 

Initially, five officers—Sarah Poole, Cpl. Edward Roussel, Lovette Williams, Christopher Stamper and Antonio Woodley—and a nurse who worked at the jail, Michelle Heughins, were charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection to Neville’s death. Charges were later dropped against the nurse, and the Forsyth County grand jury did not indict the former detention officers, according to the Forsyth County District Attorney’s Office. 

In 2022, it was reported that a $3 million settlement was reached between Neville’s family, the county and the sheriff’s office.