Nearly 3 years after outcry, audit finds rural Washington jail in a better place

Ivan Howtopat’s mother Melissa has heard anecdotes about the booking process at the Klickitat County Jail in Goldendale in recent years. And they’re positive — people describe in-depth screenings checking into their substance use and mental health.

“I feel a little bit better about the safety of people in jail now,” she said. “In this jail.”

Nearly three years after her son died by suicide while suffering from fentanyl withdrawal in the Klickitat County Jail in south-central Washington, a March 12 audit finds conditions are improving there. That’s after county commissioners removed the jail from the sheriff’s oversight and created a department of corrections, as required by a legal settlement with Howtopat’s family.

Under the settlement in the wrongful death lawsuit, the county agreed to pay the family $2 million and implement changes at the jail, including enhanced staff training and policies on suicide prevention.

In the meantime, Melissa Howtopat has campaigned for changes that she hopes could prevent future harms. In addition to the legal settlement, she takes posters of Ivan to community events, and she worked to pass a state law known as Ivan’s Law, warning young people about the dangers of fentanyl.

“There’s a lot of ways that we are still honoring him and doing the settlement was one of them,” Howtopat said.

She said when Ivan was arrested for violating probation, multiple relatives told deputies he suffered from addiction and needed to be closely monitored. But jail officials failed to catch signs that he was at risk for suicide. He was dead five days later.

Ivan Howtopat’s death and the near-death condition of another woman, both enrolled members of the Yakama Nation, sparked criticism of the jail’s leadership: Sheriff Bob Songer, known for his embrace of the “constitutional sheriff” movement, and his appointed jail supervisor Loren Culp, a Republican who has run for office.

The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs said Culp was removed from membership in 2024 for "numerous offensive social media posts."

Klickitat County commissioners considered closing the jail entirely and sending inmates to Oregon — but ultimately they kept the jail, under new leadership.

“I was really, really happy with the fact that they took the jail away from the sheriff. That decision was huge to me,” Melissa Howtopat said.

Bill Frantz is the jail’s new administrator. He previously worked for the Washington State Department of Corrections. The audit by Jeremy Wise, the state's associate superintendent of corrections, finds the jail’s organization and professionalism have improved under his guidance.

Frantz said his personal goal is to make the inmates’ experience “not miserable.”

“Oftentimes a correctional officer will go to their job and they look for what’s wrong, instead of looking for what’s right and rewarding that,” Frantz said, adding that jail staff have been receptive to new trainings and procedures.

It’s a small facility — just two officers on duty at a time for 17 inmates on one recent day. And Frantz said sometimes those officers are occupied escorting someone to the courtroom. Frantz has installed systems in jail cells to monitor inmates’ vital signs and set off an alarm if something changes.

He’s also planning to build a more private area for intake, “so an officer can do a screening where there won’t be a police officer standing over their shoulder” or an audience of other arrestees. He hopes, with more privacy, people will be as candid as possible about drug use and other safety risks.

Frantz said he’s also increased jail cell inspections. Earlier this year they found a ligature for hanging in one of those cells — the inmate has two young daughters and was despairing about his long upcoming prison sentence.

Frantz said they made efforts to intervene and helped facilitate a visit with the man’s family before he left the jail.

“We talked extensively about things and came up with strategies for him to play a role that he wants in his children's’ lives,” Frantz said.

The jail audit did flag some shortcomings. It noted that “areas for potential growth include continued refinement of intake and assessment procedures, expanded medical oversight for incarcerated individuals, and enhanced mental health resources to support both stabilization during incarceration and appropriate referral resources upon release.”

For medical care and prescriptions, the jail has a physician’s assistant who normally visits every other week. The audit said this level of on-site medical presence “is generally below what is considered best practice” in these settings.

Attorney Corinne Sebren helped negotiate the settlement between the Howtopat family and Klickitat County. She said she wants the county to step up and provide more frequent medical services.

“They know that certainly the spirit of the settlement agreement was to get more onsite medical care,” Sebren said.

But administrator Frantz said it’s not that simple, when local hospitals can’t find enough providers either.

“Even if I had the money to do it, I don’t know that I could find a professional to fill the role,” he said.

Frantz is also concerned that the settlement’s emphasis on in-person care could be a barrier to expanding services in other ways — he said he’d like to look into ways to start inmates on medications for opioid use disorder, and a 24-hour telehealth service could facilitate that.

Gabe Galanda is an Indigenous civil rights attorney in Seattle whose firm represented the Howtopat family. He said he’s glad his lawsuits are bringing changes at individual jails, but with the fourth-highest rate of jail deaths in the nation, Washington state needs more comprehensive oversight.

“At present, and I’m really sad to say this, the primary way for jail reform to be accomplished in this state is through litigation, because of the inaction of state lawmakers,” Galanda said.

In 2023, a task force recommended new statewide standards for jails — something most states already have — but the legislature rejected repeated attempts to create them.

State Sen. Rebecca Saldaña (D-Seattle), the bill’s chief sponsor, told the news site InvestigateWest this spring that lawmakers have lacked the political will to enact even a watered-down version of the standards, as they've faced opposition from law enforcement groups and city and county officials over funding questions.

Dr. Marc Stern, a correctional health care expert and University of Washington Public Health professor, told KUOW that, in order to be effective, statewide standards need to set a high bar and be enforceable.

“If state standards around jails don’t have that ‘stick,’ they’re relatively useless,” he said.

After Kyle Lara died by suicide in Garfield County Jail in 2022, his father David Lara said he was shocked to find there was no authority to contact.

“To this day, I do not understand. There is no oversight whatsoever in the state of Washington of the jail system,” David Lara told KUOW in 2024.

His family’s lawsuit resulted in local officials closing the jail entirely because they said they couldn’t afford to upgrade it. Since then, inmates have been sent to neighboring counties.

Melissa Howtopat and administrator Bill Frantz said they are both glad that Klickitat County found a way to keep its jail open, because that gives inmates more community support.