Kane County Jail inmate Tywon M. Salters, 21, was killed by a Kane County SWAT officer after taking nurses hostage at Delnor Hospital in Geneva May 13. (Kane County Sheriff’s Office)

Hospital security procedures are being reexamined at Geneva’s Delnor Hospital after a hostage situation May 13 led to the death of a Kane County jail inmate, a hospital spokeswoman said. The hospital is located at 300 Randall Road in Geneva.

Tywon Salters, 21, of Chicago, allegedly ate part of a plastic jail-issued sandal and was brought to Delnor for emergency surgery on May 8. Salters allegedly grabbed a 9mm handgun from the Kane County Sheriff’s officer who was accompanying him and took one nurse and then a second nurse hostage until he was shot and killed by a SWAT team officer around 4 p.m.

“We’re doing an internal review and working with the Kane County Sheriff’s Office to do a complete investigation of the incident and see whether protocols or policies need to be changed,” said Kim Waterman, spokesperson for Northwestern Medicine.

“The review will be focused on Delnor, but lessons learned here will be shared with the rest of the [Northwestern] system.”

“Prisoner patients are definitely high-risk and have the potential to present a serious situation for hospitals, if they try to make their getaway and make an escape,” said Martin Green, board president of the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety. Green said hospitals and health-care facilities collaborate security for correctional patients, but want the law enforcement agency in charge of the patient to have priority.

“Violence in health care is on the increase,” Green said, noting that any patient or visitor at a hospital could cause a violent situation, not just a prisoner receiving medical care. Trends in healthcare violence in the United States include conflicts in waiting rooms, more patients and visitors being armed with concealed weapons and violence spurred by the opioid crisis, Green said.

The Joint Commission partnered with the FBI in January to release an “active shooter” planning and response guide specifically for hospitals and healthcare facilities. The American Hospital Association also created a webinar to deal with active shooter emergencies. An active shooter emergency guide for hospitals was released by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in 2014.

“Most health care facilities will have a response plan for a person with a weapon or and act of violence or an active attacker,” Green said. “Unfortunately, it’s become a necessity, just like planning for a fire or other situations that are likely to occur.”

The Delnor incident is being investigated by the Illinois State Police, said Kane County Sheriff’s Office. The North Aurora Police SWAT officer who killed Salters and the correctional officer who had been guarding the prisoner were both put on leave, the Sheriff announced.

Salters had been arrested in Elgin and charged with two counts of felony possession of a stolen vehicle. He had been held in custody at Kane County Jail since April 11, the sheriff’s office said.

Salters allegedly grabbed the officer’s weapon on the third floor of the hospital and took a nurse hostage around 1 p.m. the hospital was put on lockdown and the Kane County SWAT team was summoned.

Salters released the nurse but grabbed a second nurse and ended up on the first floor in a room near the emergency room. A SWAT officer shot Salters in the head, killing him, and he was pronounced dead at 4:07 p.m.

Salters had served time in prison after parole was revoked for a 2012 Kane County conviction for felony possession of a stolen car and robbery. Salters had also been convicted of felonies in Vermillion County He was released in October 2016, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records. Salters’ address was listed in the 100 block of W. 103^rd Place in Chicago.

But Salters may have also been a victim of the scarcity of resources for mental-health treatment at county jails, said Alan Mills, of the Uptown People’s Law Center, who has worked to improve mental health treatment for prisoners.

“I haven’t seen [Salters’] medical charts, but it seems that this story is being framed too narrowly, that police are focusing on what happened in that room and how it ended up in the hostage situation,” Mills said. “What happened in the jail? We often see ingestion of foreign bodies as a symptom of untreated serious mental illness.”

Mills said smaller county jails often do not have adequate mental health care for inmates. “The bottom line is, if we’re going to lock up people with serious mental health issues, you’ve got to provide treatment.”

Green agreed that “behavioral health” patients could also be considered high-risk in hospitals, whether they are prisoners or not. Waterman cited HIPAA patient confidentiality rules and declined to answer when asked whether Salters had behavioral health or mental health treatment at Delnor hospital.

Kane County has a mental health specialty court that is meant to divert mentally ill offenders to treatment instead of incarceration. The Kane County Sheriff’s Office declined to respond to email requests about whether Salters had any interaction with the mental health court.

Mills and the Uptown People’s Law Center successfully sued the Illinois Department of Corrections to keep prisoners with serious mental health problems out of solitary confinement in Illinois prisons. His firm and the American Civil Liberties Union are involved in another joint suit against the IDOC demanding adequate medical facilities for prisoners. Deaths in prison or jail from lack of medical treatment are too common, Mills said. Last week, for example, two prisoners died in the ICE federal immigration detention system.

The Delnor hostage incident may make it more difficult for prisoners to get treatment for genuine medical problems in prison or jail, Mills said.

“There’s a default mentality [among prison administrators and personnel] that every time a prisoner asks for medical care it’s a way to manipulate the system to get out in order to get to the hospital,” he said. “[The Delnor incident] may be used to reinforce that narrative.

“The truth is, most incarcerated people who get medical care are grateful to be out of prison and getting the medical help they need. Eating a sandal and taking a hostage are not normal behavior, there might have been something else going on with [Salters].” The Chronicle was unable to locate Salters’ family members for comment.

— Delnor hostage investigation spurs hospital security plan revamp —