The end of Colorado retiree Michael Burch’s life can be measured in seconds, minutes, hours and days.
Deputies gave him 16 seconds of warning before shocking him with a Taser and tackling him inside a jail cell at the Huerfano County Detention Center in Walsenburg, breaking his ribs on a bench. Paramedics spent six minutes checking him out before leaving without providing any care. Burch banged on a cell door and screamed for help for an hour after he was injured.
And he lived for eight days before dying on the floor of that southern Colorado jail.
Officers in the Huerfano County Detention Center broke Burch’s ribs then let him go without needed medical treatment for a week as he slowly died, despite his repeated pleas for help, his family alleged in a lawsuit filed Wednesday against the Huerfano County Sheriff’s Office, the county and several individual deputies and medical providers.
The 69-year-old retired correctional officer died from complications of blunt force trauma to his chest, the coroner ruled, finding Burch suffered six badly broken ribs, a collapsed lung, internal bleeding and bruised intestines after a jail detention officer tackled him on March 28, 2023.
Burch’s rib injuries went untreated even when Burch asked to go to the hospital, told paramedics and deputies that his ribs were crushed and repeatedly pleaded for help, his family alleges. Burch was in the middle of a mental health crisis. He told deputies the devil was talking to him and sometimes ranted incoherently.
“Collectively, everybody in their jail assumed this guy was, in their own words, ‘batshit,’ ” said Omeed Azmoudeh, an attorney for Burch’s family. “That he was malingering, he was making up his injuries, the only reason he is complaining is because he wants a free day from jail by going to the hospital.”
Azmoudeh pointed to a particular moment, after Burch was tackled and handcuffed on the floor, when one captain in the jail turned to a medical provider and made a circular motion with her finger by her head and said, “Batshit.” Surveillance footage captured the exchange.
Attorney Qusair Mohamedbhai said Burch’s death was one of the most horrific he’s seen in decades.
“It’s the slow, painful death of a man in a cage that I simply have never seen before in Colorado,” he said.
Huerfano County Sheriff Bruce Newman did not return a request for comment on Burch’s death. The officers’ use of force was investigated by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and 3rd Judicial District Attorney Henry Solano declined to bring criminal charges against the deputies in January 2024.
Burch moved to Colorado in 2007 after he retired from a 23-year career as a correctional officer in California. The ordeal that led to his death began in mid-March 2023, when his neighbors and others began to notice that he was acting strangely.
In one instance, Burch went into a bank and spoke incoherently about fake $100 bills, in another he went to a hospital and complained about his rights as a veteran in an erratic manner. Then, on March 25, 2023, he pulled into the driveway of two men he’d never met, ranted about various topics and then swung a rubber mallet at them, according to the CBI’s investigative report.
He was arrested and charged with felony menacing. After he was booked into the detention center, someone there gave him a small pencil and notepad, and he wrote notes on it to calm himself. On his third day in custody, a newly hired detention officer said he saw Burch pull the small pencil across his wrist in a “cutting” motion, according to the CBI report.
Detention officer Stuart Pino and Capt. Lea Vigil went to Burch’s single-person cell, where Pino shouted, “You going to try to stab somebody?” body-worn camera footage shows. Burch did not answer.
Pino and Vigil opened the cell door and Pino shouted at Burch to drop the pencil.
“Drop it, or we’ll drop you,” he shouted.
Burch stood at the back of his cell with his hands at his sides and did not move or speak, the body-worn camera footage shows. Sixteen seconds after the first shout, Vigil fired her Taser at Burch as he stood with his hands at his sides. Burch then lunged forward.
Pino grabbed Burch and tackled him, throwing the man into a bench. Burch let go of the pencil and was handcuffed. The officers later said that Burch tried to stab them with the pencil.
When paramedics arrived a few minutes later, Burch complained that his right side hurt.
“My ribs are crushed… all of the ribs are in my body,” he said. When asked if he wanted to go to the hospital, he said, “Oh yeah man, I want to go.”
But Capt. Billy LaPorte intervened, telling paramedics that since it wasn’t an emergency, the jail’s medical staff would evaluate Burch internally and decide whether he needed to go to a hospital, the body-worn camera footage shows.
Over the next seven days, Burch’s condition worsened. In the hours immediately after the incident, he scooted across the floor of his cell, sat by the door and banged on it, shouting for “Help,” on and off for an hour, surveillance video shows. He also apologized and asked for water. Jail staff had covered the main window of his cell with black plastic after Burch stripped naked. He sat by a second window inches above the ground, hitting it with the back of his elbow, surveillance footage shows.
He was slowly suffocating, Azmoudeh said.
“His breaths got shorter and shorter and shorter until he was no longer breathing,” he said.
By March 31, a big, black bruise was visible on Burch’s torso, surveillance video shows. On April 1, Burch told Vigil that he’d nearly died the night before.
“I almost didn’t make it last night, sweetheart,” he said, repeating that his ribs were crushed and asking for a medical appointment.
Two hours later — five days after the incident — he had a telehealth visit with a nurse practitioner who was out of state. The nurse practitioner did not identify Burch’s rib injuries and the visit instead focused solely on his mental health. Burch still received no care for his injury, his attorneys say.
The lawsuit names the paramedics and that nurse practitioner as defendants. Azmoudeh said it was the responsibility of the medical providers to identify and treat Burch’s injuries.
“People who are experiencing a mental crisis require more advocacy by medical staff and the people responsible for providing medical care rather than less,” Azmoudeh said. “If someone is in crisis they will have, for obvious reasons, a more difficult time communicating their injuries and ailments.”
Two days after the telehealth visit, Burch collapsed in his cell at 10:38 p.m. on April 3, according to the lawsuit. An officer looked in the cell at midnight and took no action. Not until 4:40 a.m. did an officer actually enter the cell to check on Burch. By that time, his body was cold.
The officer made a call over the radio.
“Oh, this guy’s frozen, bro.”
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