At the time of Talotta’s arrest and incarceration, he had been living in group homes since his mother’s death less than 10 years earlier, said attorney Alec B. Wright, who is representing Talotta’s estate.
On September 9, 2022, Talotta was cooking pasta at a group home when a staff member told him he wasn’t allowed to cook. The details are unclear, but Wright said an altercation ensued. A pot of boiling water appears to have fallen on Talotta’s foot, causing second-degree burns, torn ligaments, and fractures in his foot. Someone then called the police.
When law enforcement arrived, the officers unsuccessfully tried to dissuade the staff from pursuing charges against Talotta. Police took him to the hospital and then to jail, Wright said.
Wright said Talotta, who had an IQ of just above 60, had never been arrested before. During his jail intake in the early morning of September 10, he told a nurse, “I’m feeling pretty scared.”
Medical staff recorded in their notes that Talotta had “severe mental retardation, autism, anxiety, [and] depression.” They also wrote that he “appeared to be vulnerable and very child like [sic],” according to the complaint. The complaint states that he had also been diagnosed with diabetes and hypertension.
Some jail staff appeared to believe that Talotta was manipulative and dishonest.
“He attempted to blame his behaviors on his ‘Autism,’” the jail psychiatrist wrote, according to Wright. The psychiatrist also wrote that staff reported he was “childlike at times, exaggerating his symptoms and appearing to be very needy.”
On September 11, Talotta was sent back to the hospital, where doctors put a splint on his broken foot and gave him crutches. But when he returned to the jail, staff allegedly took those two medical devices away because they were not allowed in the mental health unit.
Cultures of Talotta’s wound collected at the hospital showed he had three bacterial infections. But the suit alleged that he received no care for his wound at the jail.
On September 13, Talotta went back to the hospital. Doctors gave him an antibacterial cream, liquid soap, gauze, dressing, and other items to care for his wound. But when he returned to the jail, medical staff confiscated these items, according to the complaint.
From there, Talotta’s condition continued to deteriorate.
On the evening of September 20, Talotta was reportedly found unable to speak and clutching his chest. Sitting on a bench in the common area, a physician at the jail gave him allergy medication and ordered him back to his cell, Wright told The Appeal. But Talotta couldn’t walk. An officer and another detainee helped him back to his cell. Less than three hours later, Talotta was found on the floor of his cell, convulsing and foaming at the mouth, Wright said.
The staff called paramedics, who took Talotta to the hospital. While there, the complaint says Talotta was discharged from jail—a move Talotta’s attorney says was designed to skirt accountability for what happened.
“It’s one of the practices of the Allegheny County jail so that they can misrepresent reporting and cause less paperwork,” Wright said. “When somebody like [Talotta] gets taken to [the hospital], they fill out a single page form that says we release him from custody. And as soon as they do that they no longer have to report the death—in their minds and it’s not true—as being an in-custody death.”
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Talotta never regained consciousness. The next day, he was pronounced dead. According to his hospital report, he was diagnosed with sepsis, a potentially fatal condition that occurs when a bacterial infection enters the bloodstream. Hospital staff recorded serious secondary diagnoses, including kidney failure, respiratory failure, diabetic ketoacidosis, and cardiac arrest.
An autopsy by the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office stated that Talotta’s death was natural and caused by heart disease.