Deion Byrd would have turned 26 years old on Jan. 31. His father, Marcus Byrd, told HuffPost that Deion usually spent his birthdays with his family, watching television and eating some of his mothers cooking at their home in Memphis, Tennessee.

He liked joking and things like that, Marcus said. He wanted to rap and made a few mixtapes. He had dreams of doing things he could enjoy.

Last year, Deion Byrd was involved in a car crash that led to a mans death. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy alleged that Byrd and another man were evading police in a getaway vehicle linked to organized robberies at local liquor stores. Byrd was in the passenger seat.

Byrd was indicted on charges of theft, burglary, vehicular homicide and first-degree murder and was sent to the Shelby County jail on June 24.

On Oct. 26, he was set to appear before a judge for an arraignment and was in a holding cell in the Shelby County courthouse with another inmate, Donnie Clay, 21. Byrd and Clay began arguing after Byrd accused Clay of breaking into his home.

Clay allegedly stabbed Byrd in the neck with a shank. Byrd died at a nearby hospital. How could we not be able to protect another inmate from being killed? Shelby County Judge Paula Skahan said after the incident . Thats our job, to make sure everyone is safe in our system, and we couldnt do it.

His family also had questions. Deion was already in a place that was already crumbling, Marcus Byrd told HuffPost. There is no structure there, and they dont have enough people to watch everybody.

Byrds family filed a wrongful death lawsuit last month the third filed against the jail in the past year, all of them ongoing. The Byrd familys suit alleged that poor staffing and neglect led to the deaths of prisoners in the facility.

In recent years, the Shelby County jail has grown more deadly than the notoriously dangerous Rikers Island jail complex in New York.

While Rikers had 16 deaths between January and December 2021, the Shelby County jail had 10 deaths. In 2022, the Shelby County jail deaths increased to 14 for the year while Rikers Island had 17, despite having two and a half times the population.

The Shelby County sheriffs department declined to comment on the jails death rate, on allegations from inmates family members, or on the ongoing lawsuits.

A Long History Of Problems

The U.S. Department of Justice began investigating the Shelby County jail in 2000 due to multiple allegations of excessive violence and inadequate prisoner supervision. The findings showed conditions in the jail were violating the constitutional rights of prisoners, and that the facility did not have adequate supervision of prisoners, leading to repeated incidents of inmate-on-inmate violence.

In May 2020, the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee filed a federal class action lawsuit against the jail demanding the release of inmates who were at risk of getting COVID-19. The lawsuit said the jail violated constitutional rights and did not meet minimum statutory requirements. An agreement was reached in 2021 that the jail would implement changes to improve conditions and control the spread of the virus better.

A total of 52 inmates have died in the jail since 2016.

Shelby County court records note 31 violations among county correctional officers from June 2018 to September 2021. The disciplinary actions range from oral and written reprimands to suspensions and firings.