Las Animas County coroner investigates death after jail medical emergency

The Las Animas County Coroner’s Office is investigating the death of John Romero, 58, after a medical emergency inside the Las Animas County Detention Center, a case that now turns attention to how the county jail responds when someone in custody needs urgent care.

Romero experienced the emergency on April 20 while he was being held at the detention center. Detention staff responded and requested emergency medical services, and Romero was later transported to Mount San Rafael Hospital in Trinidad. The coroner’s office has not released a cause of death, and the investigation is still underway.

The coroner’s office says it investigates sudden and unattended deaths across Las Animas County, and that includes deaths of people who were in law-enforcement custody or incarcerated in a public institution. That makes Romero’s death a reportable case within the office’s jurisdiction and places the focus on the timeline from the first signs of distress to the response inside the jail and the transfer to medical care.

The sheriff’s office, which says it manages jail operations, is based at the Garcia Justice Center, 2309 E. Main Street in Trinidad. The county also says the sheriff’s office provides law enforcement services in unincorporated areas, courthouse security and jail management. Those duties are now part of the larger question surrounding this death: whether staff levels, monitoring practices and emergency procedures were enough when the medical crisis began.

Mount San Rafael Hospital says its emergency department operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week and provides initial evaluation, stabilization, diagnosis and treatment, with transfer to a higher level of care when needed. Romero’s transport there shows the emergency passed from the jail to local medical responders and then to hospital care, a chain of events that the coroner will now review.

State and federal reporting rules add another layer of oversight. The Colorado Division of Criminal Justice Office of Research and Statistics says deaths in custody are covered by the federal Death in Custody Reporting Act, which applies to people detained or incarcerated in county jails. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance says states that receive certain Byrne JAG funding must report deaths in custody.

A public jail-profile listing places the Las Animas County Jail’s construction in 2001, with capacity for 105 inmates, an average daily population of 17 and about 20 full-time staff. As the coroner determines the cause and manner of death, county officials will face pressure to explain how a medical emergency unfolded inside one of the county’s most sensitive public institutions.