When Hunter Demster saw a man wearing only a blue paper jumpsuit emerge from 201 Poplar shortly after 9 p.m. Monday, as temperatures dipped below freezing, he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

“My jaw dropped when I saw him wearing just that paper jumpsuit,” said Demster, a member of the state steering committee for the Tennessee Poor People's Campaign. “I felt a level of disgust that is hard to put into words.”

The Poor People’s Campaign gathers outside the Criminal Justice Center at 201 Poplar each Monday evening to provide food, clothing and information to those being released from the Shelby County Jail.

Whether the unidentified man in the paper jumpsuit was actually a Shelby County Jail inmate is in dispute.

Lt. Anthony Buckner, a spokesman with the Shelby County Sheriff's Department, said inmates released from 201 Poplar are not given clothes made of paper. 

“We buy sweatsuits for them to wear if their clothes are damaged or if they have nothing to wear when they are released,” Buckner said. “We don’t even buy the paper jumpsuits.”

Buckner said anyone spotted in paper jumpsuits could be coming from other facilities.

“I’ve heard it could be state institutions, it could be county corrections or it could be one of the hospitals,” Buckner said. “... What tends to happen, from my understanding, is if they are coming from one of these facilities and they don’t have a place to go, they take them to one of the homeless shelters, which is right down the street from the jail. They might drop them off there, but then they walk up to 201 Poplar and then someone takes a picture of them standing outside and they think they came out of our jail.”

Demster, whose picture of the man spread on social media, said that’s not what happened in the Monday incident.

“The man came out of 201 Poplar. We all saw him,” Demster said. “Shelby County may not have issued that blue suit, but they released that man in that paper suit. We have to address this and can’t keep passing the buck.”

Demster and his colleagues outfitted the man in warm clothes and listened to his story. Demster said the man had been in jail since Jan. 25 and spent the weekend there until he was released three days later.

“His exact words to us were, ‘God must have sent y’all knowing that I was getting released tonight,' ” Demster said. “And that’s why we do what we do. To bear witness to these horrors. To this abuse.”

Out of the 30 people released Monday, Demster said the man in question was the only one wearing a paper jumpsuit. He said the group goes on Monday nights because that’s when those held over the weekend are released.

“We do it on Monday night because if you are arrested on a Thursday night, normally you have to spend the weekend in jail before you can see a judge and are released, so there are a lot of people that have been sitting in jail for days,” Demster said. “They are dressed in whatever they came in wearing and then they mass release them on Monday night.”

Even though Demster said they saw only the one person in questionable clothing Monday, it isn’t the first time it has happened.

“We just dealt with this same scenario on Oct. 23, 2018, with reassurances that was not going to happen ... that they do not do that at this facility, and they were taking steps to address it,” Demster said. “And then we see another man let out in the cold in paper clothes again.”

Prisoners being released in inadequate clothing from correctional facilities isn’t a new problem. Many jails around the country have had similar incidents in recent years.

“At the end of the day, if we have to start living our lives centered around a moral compass, nobody should be let out in those conditions wearing a paper jumpsuit. That’s humanity 101.”
Hunter Demster, Tennessee Poor People's Campaign

Just this week, a picture circulated of prisoners at the Cook County Jail in Chicago, the country’s largest jail, wearing only orange jumpsuits as they shoveled snow in freezing temperatures. The photo sparked outrage and went viral on social media.

In 2016, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a law requiring city jails to provide weather-appropriate clothing to those released. In the past, the prisoners had been released in thin jail uniforms.

Demster said Wednesday he has talked to Buckner, the sheriff’s department spokesman, and is getting a copy of the department's policy that deals with the issue.

He said he hopes the issue is resolved soon and plans to meet with sheriff’s department representatives to discuss it further. 

“I am glad we were there when the man was released, but I am left with the thought of how many people did we miss, and that is heartbreaking,” Demster said. “At the end of the day, if we have to start living our lives centered around a moral compass, nobody should be let out in those conditions wearing a paper jumpsuit. That’s humanity 101.”