Lawsuit raises questions about a coroner’s ruling in Nevada prisoner’s death after beatings

LAS VEGAS – The mother of a Nevada inmate who died a year ago after being beaten by corrections officers has filed a lawsuit accusing prison officials of conspiring with the medical examiner’s office in Las Vegas to cover up the death.

Annette Walker alleges in the lawsuit filed Thursday night in Clark County District Court that her son, Christian, was savagely beaten by guards on at least two separate occasions and left to die at High Desert State Prison near Las Vegas. Vegas, and that a larger pattern of excessive force exists in the state’s prison system.

“This lawsuit represents something much, much bigger than just Christian,” the suit says. “It represents all those who came before and will come after Christian Walker.”

Walker’s face was swollen and stained with blood when he died in custody last April, according to the lawsuit and an unredacted copy of his autopsy report obtained by The Associated Press. He also suffered head trauma and other injuries to his torso, neck and extremities.

The coroner concluded that it was a natural death caused by heart problems.

Lary Simms, a forensic pathology expert who worked for 25 years as a medical examiner in Las Vegas and Chicago, reviewed Walker’s autopsy report and the plaintiffs’ medical records. He recommended a “complete re-evaluation” of Walker’s death.

The medical examiner’s “microscopic description” of Walker’s apparent heart problems in the autopsy report did not fit into the final ruling, Simms wrote in an affidavit filed with the lawsuit.

The state Department of Corrections and its director, James Dzurenda, several prison administrators, medical staff and unidentified guards, along with the Clark County coroner’s office, are listed as defendants. Both the corrections department and the county declined to comment Friday.

Walker was 44 years old when he died on April 15, 2023. He spent more than two decades behind bars after being convicted of second-degree murder in the 1997 death of his then-girlfriend. manslaughter in 2001.

His family described him in the lawsuit as a man of faith who avoided trouble in prison. He worked as an auto mechanic and barber. He earned certificates in Christian studies and computer programming while housed since 1999 at the Southern Desert Correctional Center, a medium-security prison in Las Vegas, the lawsuit states.

According to the lawsuit and autopsy report, Walker was experiencing extreme paranoia and struggling to lose his train of thought when he was transferred to nearby High Desert State Prison, a mixed-security facility.

It wasn’t long before Walker was “brutally assaulted with batons and pepper sprayed,” the lawsuit states, causing him to lose consciousness.

Jail staff said Walker repeatedly ignored commands and showed aggression toward officers, prompting them to restrain him with batons and their hands, according to the autopsy.

Walker was taken to a hospital in Las Vegas and had difficulty speaking. Rescuers described a series of injuries in their medical report, including “raccoon eyes” and “uncontrolled bleeding” on the scalp, face and lips, according to the lawsuit.

He was released from the hospital hours later and taken back to prison, where guards beat Walker with batons a second time the next day, the lawsuit alleges.

Walker was placed alone in a cell in the prison infirmary, a unit where he could be supervised by medical staff, according to the lawsuit. However, the lawsuit alleges that prison officers and medical staff failed to check on Walker that night, even as he was “lying in a pool of blood, groaning” under a metal bed.

He was dead in the morning, found naked, bloody and unconscious on the floor.

Along with wrongful death, the lawsuit accuses the corrections department of cruel and unusual punishment against Walker, as well as negligence on the part of the prison’s guards and medical staff. It also accuses the coroner’s office of deliberate indifference.

The timeline of the beatings described in the lawsuit differs from the dates listed in Walker’s autopsy.

James Urrutia, an attorney for Walker’s family, told the AP that the timeline laid out in the lawsuit is based largely on Walker’s medical records and testimony from witnesses, including first responders. But he said the full picture of how Walker died is not complete because the corrections department denied the law firm’s repeated requests for security footage and other records.

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Associated Press writer Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, contributed to this report.

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Stern reported from Reno. He is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. Follow Stern on X: @gabesttern326.