KAFKAESQUE

Man Gets $600K for Chicago Jail Debacle

After accidentally being locked up for 32 hours.

A man who was accidentally locked up in a Chicago jail while visiting his son won $600,000 in court after suing for emotional trauma. Farad Polk was paying a visit to his son at the Cook County Jail in 2014 when things took a turn for the truly bizarre. Polk was directed by a guard to “go down the hallway and turn to the right,” but when he did a heavy steel door slammed shut behind him. He wound up in an 8-foot-by-8-foot cell that authorities said was a super-maximum security prisoners’ visiting room. Polk cried for help but the guards could not hear him, and he was only rescued after breaking a sprinkler head, which attracted the attention of the fire department. He was trapped in the cell for 32 hours without a toilet, food, or water.