A dead body went untouched for hours. Children were jailed with adults. Holding cells overflowed with detainees.
Last December, the acting chief of St. Louis’ jail was accused of breaking federal law, according to internal disciplinary records obtained by St. Louis Public Radio. Afterward, the former jail boss, Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah, demoted Tammy Ross from deputy jail commissioner to an administrative assistant.
The documents describe the latest indication of turmoil at the City Justice Center, a facility scrutinized for a lack of transparency and poor conditions that have contributed to detainee deaths, protests and the ouster of jail leadership.
In internal emails, Ross herself said the jail was facing “an immediate crisis.”
Just a day after returning from a nearly three-month leave that was never publicly explained, Clemons-Abdullah accused Ross of breaking federal law by allowing juvenile detainees to speak with adults and leaving a detainee’s dead body in his cell for hours, the records show.
After weeks of a bitter email debate between the two, she demoted Ross.
The next day, former Mayor Tishaura Jones fired Clemons-Abdullah and promoted Ross to acting jail commissioner, despite Ross facing disciplinary measures.
Jones declined to comment on Ross’ promotion and Clemons-Abdullah’s ouster, but said that former Public Safety Director Charles Coyle oversaw day-to-day jail operations under her administration. Coyle could not be immediately reached for comment.
Ross and her new boss, interim Jail Commissioner Doug Burris, declined to comment through a spokesperson, citing confidentiality laws around personnel records.
Juveniles mixed with adults
When Clemons-Abdullah returned from leave in December, documents show she demanded answers from Ross: Why were juveniles being housed within “sight and sound” of adults?
Missouri and federal laws and policies prohibit juveniles from being housed within view or hearing range of adults. Violations can result in the loss of federal funding and trigger oversight.
Ross acknowledged “severe overcrowding” on the jail’s second floor, with more than 50 detainees packed into holding cells and pushing capacity to a breaking point around Dec. 10.
A source familiar with the disciplinary records, but not authorized to speak on them, confirmed that photographs within the records appear to show minors speaking with adults inside the jail.
Missouri law states that juveniles can be held in adult jails when they are certified as an adult. Typically, such a court-ordered designation is reserved for minors who commit crimes that would be considered a felony if committed by an adult.
"The overcrowding left no capacity to accept new arrivals and arrestees from the police,” Ross wrote to Clemons-Abdullah. “In addition to space constraints, we face significant staff shortages that further limit the ability to manage the detainees effectively.”
Ross continued that the decision to place juveniles near adults was not made lightly. She described it as a last-resort response to what she called “an immediate operational crisis.” Other nearby facilities, she noted, were also struggling to house juvenile detainees.
“I take full responsibility for this decision. It was made in response to what I thought was an immediate crisis, with the safety of detainees and staff as the top priority,” Ross wrote on Dec. 10. “While the decision was not ideal, it was necessary to address the operational challenges at hand.”
Clemons-Abdullah didn’t seem to buy it. She wrote that Ross was accountable to the public and needed to follow legal guardrails.
“You placed this facility in a position that cannot be explained — to intentionally violate state and federal law,” Clemons-Abdullah wrote on Dec. 11. “You made a conscious decision that simply cannot be answered by ‘we needed the space.’”
Ross said she had consulted former Public Safety Director Charles Coyle before acting. But Clemons-Abdullah dismissed her explanation, arguing Coyle lacked knowledge of jail operations because he was a political appointee.
The jail commissioner then posed Ross a pointed question: Was she appointed or hired?
“Being appointed means you serve at the honor of the Mayor,” Clemons-Abdullah said. “Be [sic] hired means you serve at the honor of the people and citizens of Saint Louis which means abiding by laws and regulations of the federal and state government.”
Ross said she was hired to serve the people of St. Louis and would try to do better.
Clemons-Abdullah demanded that Ross tell St. Louis' Chief Juvenile Trial Attorney, James Michaels, that the jail would no longer house juvenile detainees if it didn’t have the space or was unable to find another solution.
“Advising the juvenile court of an inability to accept certified juveniles could have far-reaching consequences for our facility’s operations,” Ross replied.
A detainee dead and left behind
Just weeks earlier, a deceased detainee was left lying in the jail for hours on Ross’ watch.
A pre-disciplinary hearing document obtained by St. Louis Public Radio shows Ross was scheduled for review on Dec. 20, accused of being “either unable or unwilling to perform the duties of her job position in a satisfactory manner.”
The document cites multiple allegations, including the juvenile housing violations and a separate event when Ross was allegedly alerted that a detainee might have died inside the facility. After arriving at the jail, the acting commissioner allegedly left the deceased individual in his cell for several hours.
On Nov. 9, the detainee was identified by public safety officials as 58-year-old Antonio Weber. Internal records allege Ross allowed St. Louis Fire Department paramedics to leave the jail without taking his body.
"I understand he was yelling and telling them his chest was hurting and then within an hour or so you come back around and make rounds and he's deceased? Like what did you all do within the time of him complaining?” Carman Weber told KSDK News following her brother’s death. “I think my brother would still be alive, honestly, if they had attended to his medical condition, which was his drug addiction.”
Roughly a month later, Ross was questioned about why the detainee had not been transported to the hospital.
“That is on me, I allowed that to occurred [sic],” Ross said, according to the Dec. 18 disciplinary document. “The EMS were new and did not know the protocol.”
The disciplinary report alleges that, by not separating juveniles and adults in the jail and failing to have Weber’s body taken away, Ross violated federal and state law. It also claims she violated the city’s employee code of conduct, which requires staff to act legally and ethically.
It also faults Ross for failing to maintain a professional attitude “so as not to reflect negatively upon the image of the facility and/or its operations.”
Leadership in flux
The hearing led to Ross’ Dec. 20 demotion to administrative assistant, scheduled to take effect on Dec. 29, according to the records. But the day after the demotion was hand-delivered, then-Mayor Jones fired Clemons-Abdullah amid mounting public pressure over jail conditions and lack of transparency.
The mayor’s office did not say why the jail commissioner had been fired when it announced the news on Dec. 21.
Jones told STLPR last week that she was unsure if Clemons-Abdullah knew on Dec. 20 — the day the jail commissioner demoted Ross — that she would soon be fired. A city personnel official testified earlier this year that the mayor's office was attempting to find a job for the embroiled jail commissioner following her removal.
Clemons-Abdullah faced years of scrutiny over her leadership of the City Justice Center, including repeated calls for her resignation from members of St. Louis’ Detention Facilities Oversight Board.
Her three-year tenure was marked by severe incidents, including a 2023 standoff in which detainees took hostage a guard in his 70s and injured him, as well as the deaths of 12 people in custody. Attorneys reported ongoing difficulty accessing their clients inside the facility under her tenure.
Despite facing disciplinary action herself, Ross was appointed to serve as acting commissioner of corrections for a little over a month until interim jail boss Burris was hired. He has never publicly acknowledged the demotion, and it is unclear if Ross appealed the decision to the city’s Civil Service Commission.
Before being appointed to lead the jail, Burris was hired to review its conditions.
In a January report, Burris flagged problems in security, health care, lack of access to library books and more. He vowed swift reform and programming changes to help detainees, some of which have proven effective.
While Burris’ approach has been met with optimism in some circles, jail reform advocates expressed concern that his involvement with the jail was just the latest turn in a carousel of administrators and commissions who have failed to produce meaningful change at the jail.
On Saturday, detainee Samuel Hayes Jr. died in custody under Burris’ watch — marking the 20th in-custody death at the jail since 2020. Hayes was found unresponsive after being put in a restraint chair, according to police. This is the second jail death this year — Derek Dean died in custody last March.
"My office is committed to ensuring accountability and a full review of the circumstances surrounding this incident," said St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer in a written statement Sunday about the latest death. "I have been clear about my commitment to ensuring the safety of those in our care at the jail, and reforming the jail is one of my top priorities."
Burris previously acknowledged that while he hasn’t experienced the pain of families who’ve lost loved ones in St. Louis’ jail, he can empathize with them.
“If you have an organization that’s fully staffed with people who have empathy,” he said, “you’re going to have an outstanding jail — and a successful one.”
Ross continues to work at the City Justice Center as an administrative assistant to the jail commissioner.
St. Louis Public Radio’s Lacretia Wimbley contributed to this report.
