A mother is seeking answers after her son died while in custody of the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia, 11 Alive News reports.
According to the sheriff’s office, Christopher Collins, a 27-year-old U.S. Army veteran, experienced a medical emergency in his cell at the DeKalb County jail on March 13. An onsite medical team responded to Collins’ cell before paramedics arrived and took him to the hospital.
Collins died two days later on March 15.
The veteran’s mother, Jonia Milburn, said he had struggled with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder since returning from deployment in 2018. Over the past few years, Collins had been in and out of jail as his mom tried to get him proper treatment in a hospital. Milburn said she tried to work with the Veterans Affairs case workers, doctors, nurses, deputies, police, Congress, and Georgia lawmakers to help her son.
“I’ve been fighting this fight for the last five years,” Milburn said.
The mother said she rushed to the hospital from Houston when she was informed of her son’s medical emergency.
“There’s many answers that I want. I have no idea what happened. All I know is I got a call. I got here. My son was on maximum life support, and we had to make a decision,” Milburn said.
She is still unsure about the details surrounding his death.
“What happened to my son? Who was in the jail cell with him? How long was he down? Who found him,” the mother questioned.
Milburn hopes to get answers for her son and aid other veterans in getting the help they need.
“There’s no way that a veteran that has served our country should die in a jail cell because he was in jail because of a mental health episode,” she said.
The DeKalb Sheriff’s office is still investigating Collins’ death.
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