A 31-year-old woman who died in a Philadelphia jail Saturday morning had been arrested for drug possession just days earlier in Kensington as part of a coordinated sweep in the neighborhood.
Amanda Cahill, of Roxborough, was found unresponsive in a cell at the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center Saturday morning, according to a jail spokesperson. The medical examiner has not released an official cause of death, but Cahill’s family said authorities suspect she died of complications related to drug intoxication or withdrawal.
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Cahill was one of 34 people arrested Wednesday on charges related to narcotics and open warrants. The police-led sweep was one of the largest concerted arrest efforts in Kensington since June, when the department announced it would ramp up enforcement of drug laws in the neighborhood.
For months, City Hall has had an intense focus on Kensington, where Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has pledged to end the notorious open-air drug market. Cahill’s death is certain to raise new questions about the jails’ ability to absorb an influx of inmates out of Kensington, and it comes amid existing scrutiny of the understaffed system. Last month, a judge ordered the city in contempt of a 2022 settlement agreement over inhumane conditions in the jails.
» READ MORE: Drug deaths and overdoses plague Philly jails, raising concerns about plans to step up Kensington arrests
John Mitchell, a spokesperson for the prisons, said the department had advance notice of the sweep in Kensington last week and were prepared for a surge of inmates. He said a nurse performing withdrawal assessments visited Cahill at about 1 a.m. Saturday, and Cahill “indicated she was fine.”
About six-and-a-half hours later, a nurse found Cahill unresponsive and administered CPR. Mitchell said a medical response team “continued lifesaving efforts,” but Cahill never regained consciousness, and was pronounced dead at 7:45 a.m.
Cahill’s sister, Amber Clark, said jail officials told her family that Cahill likely went into cardiac arrest as a result of withdrawal and that there were not signs of a fight or other trauma.
Clark said she questions how Cahill could have died in custody.
“There are tons of thoughts going through our mind,” she said. “Like, what happened when she got there? What was she given? Did they give her any medications to help her with the withdrawal?”
The sweep in Kensington
Philadelphia police conducted the sweep in a small section of Kensington Wednesday afternoon, focusing on the 3200 block of G Street, from F Street to Kensington Avenue, and Westmoreland Street to Allegheny Avenue, East District Sgt. Michael Hanuscin said during a community meeting in Harrowgate on Thursday.
During that sweep, officers arrested 34 people for various offenses — of them, 11 were taken to the hospital, said 24th District Capt. Christopher Bullick.
It remains unclear whether Cahill was transported to the hospital. Police said she was arrested at about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday on the 700 block of East Allegheny Avenue. Courts records show she was charged with drug possession and she had an open bench warrant in Chester County for a separate drug-possession case from 2020.
Clark said her sister has lived in different parts of the city but frequented Kensington, where about 700 people are currently living on the street. Police Staff Inspector LaVerne Vann said last week that’s up from about 500 at this time last year.
”This is the most we’ve ever seen,” Vann told residents.
Bullick said officers have been focused on making more arrests for possession of drug paraphernalia. The first goal, he said, is “to stop open use.”
So far this year, Philadelphia police have arrested about 870 people for drug possession — about 250 more than the same time period last year, but still fewer than the number of arrests reported in the years prior, according to data from the District Attorney’s Office. That arrest total remains far below the more than 4,500 people arrested for drug possession during the same time just five years ago.
And while the number of drug possession arrests has ticked up, arrests for drug sales are flat. So far this year, more than 1,900 people have been charged with selling narcotics, which is on par with the total amount reported in the last two years, but about a 20% decrease compared to the same time in 2021.
More than two-thirds of all drug-crime arrests this year have been reported in the 24th and 25th police districts, which include Kensington.
Concerns about jail preparedness
If Cahill indeed died of drug-related causes, she would be one of at least 26 people who have died in a Philadelphia jail since 2018 due to an accident related to drug intoxication, according to an Inquirer analysis of city records.
That’s led some, including activists and members of City Council, to question the administration’s strategy in Kensington and ask whether the jails can handle a wave of inmates with complex physical and behavioral health needs. The system has been understaffed for several years — the department’s job vacancy rate was about 44% in April, the most recent month for which data is available.
City Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke, of the Working Families Party, said Cahill’s death is a “call to action” for city officials. He’s called for reducing the city’s jail population with the short-term goal of closing one jail facility, the Detention Center, to ease staffing demands.
“They can’t take any more people into these jails safely. That is the truth. And responsible governance would heed that truth,” he said. “We’re mobilizing with gusto to lock people up for drug charges when we know our jails are no place for recovery or support. That is unacceptable.”
Prisons Commissioner Michael Resnick said in July that preparations were not needed to ensure the safety of people potentially arrested in Kensington, saying “the point of the mayor’s program is they won’t be incarcerated … they’ll be going into treatment.”
But both Parker and Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel have made clear that some people would be incarcerated as part of the Kensington initiative. The Police Department outlined its strategy in an April document, describing narcotics and warrant sweeps that are part of a “focused and intense effort.”
Incarceration is even more likely for people who are arrested and have open warrants, like Cahill. In addition to the Chester County case, Cahill was awaiting sentencing on identity theft charges in Bucks County, court papers show.
Clark said Cahill struggled with addiction since she was a teenager — first it was prescription pills, then heroin and fentanyl. But she was also a loving mother to two boys, ages 12 and 6, Clark said, and was “very funny and all-around caring.”
“A lot of people have a bad memory of Amanda. But I would not want them to remember her like that,” she said. “How I remember her is she was caring and fought hard for her family and her friends.”
Staff writer Chris Palmer contributed to this article.
