Council Takes Up Deaths at South Bay Jail Monday, 10 Months After a Detainee's Death Was Ruled a Homicide and With No Charges Filed

The Boston City Council's Committee on Public Safety and Criminal Justice will hold a hearing at 2 p.m. Monday, Oct. 26, in the Iannella Chamber at City Hall to examine deaths of people held at the Suffolk County House of Correction, the jail at South Bay, according to a public notice posted by the city. The hearing is the first public council session on the subject since the order was filed in the spring.

The order, Docket #0870, was filed April 29, 2026, by Councilors Miniard Culpepper, Julia Mejia and Brian Worrell, according to the council's Legistar record, and was referred to the public safety committee the same day. The text of the order lists eight more councilors as co-offerers: Liz Breadon, Sharon Durkan, John FitzGerald, Ed Flynn, Erin Murphy, Enrique Pepén, Henry Santana and Benjamin Weber. That is 11 of the council's 13 members.

The order makes two central claims. It states that "over the past five years, there have been over 20 deaths in custody across Suffolk County correctional facilities, including several at the Suffolk County House of Correction, indicating a concerning pattern of mortality within a relatively short period of time." And it singles out "the death of Shacoby Kenny, which occurred in December 2025 following an altercation with correctional officers," saying it "has raised significant questions regarding the use of force, staff conduct, and the adequacy of emergency response and medical care."

The order asks the committee to look at the circumstances of recent deaths "with a particular focus on the December 2025 incident," and at systemic factors including "the use of force, access to medical and mental health care, and institutional policies and practices." It says relevant government agencies and other interested parties "shall be invited to attend." The public notice does not list which officials have agreed to testify.

Kenny, 32, of Springfield, died Dec. 8, 2025, Boston.com reported in July. He was a pretrial detainee held on $2,500 bail on assault charges, according to the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ). In July, the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide. The official cause, as reported by BINJ, was "hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy due to resuscitated cardiac arrest during physical restraint by correction officers." A homicide ruling by a medical examiner means a death was caused by another person; it is not a finding of criminal responsibility.

No one has been charged. The Massachusetts Attorney General's Office is leading a criminal investigation, according to BINJ and Boston.com, and the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office has referred questions to the attorney general. Kenny's mother, Druesilla Brown, and her lawyer, Tony Ellison, told BINJ that officials said in meetings earlier this year that a grand jury investigation had begun. The attorney general's office did not confirm that to BINJ.

The officers involved have not been removed from the jail. A spokesperson for the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department told BINJ in a statement published Oct. 5 that "all eleven of the officers involved in the use of force response remain on non-inmate/detainee contact positions." The department did not explain to BINJ why none had been fired, suspended or placed on leave. BINJ also reported that witnesses alleged some of the same officers helped transport witnesses to give initial statements to Boston police homicide detectives, a claim the sheriff's department denies. Those claims are allegations and have not been tested in court.

Brown described to BINJ being told repeatedly that the sheriff, an elected official, could not be ordered to take officers off the job. "They all gave me the same thing: that the sheriff is an elected official," she said.

The council has limited direct power over the jail. The Suffolk County Sheriff's Department is run by an independently elected sheriff, not by the city, so a city council hearing cannot discipline officers or change jail policy on its own. What a hearing can do is put officials on the record. Councilors can ask the sheriff's department, the attorney general's office and the district attorney's office to explain timelines, staffing decisions and medical care practices in public, and they can ask for data the order itself does not include, such as a list of the more than 20 deaths it references, their causes and where each occurred.

Boston.com reported in July that the council passed a resolution in May related to Kenny's death. Monday's session is a hearing on the separate April order, which remains in committee. After a hearing, a committee can hold working sessions or report the matter back to the full council, but a hearing order does not by itself produce legislation.

Open questions heading into Monday include whether the sheriff's department will send a representative, whether the attorney general's office will say when its investigation is expected to conclude, and whether the council will receive a full accounting of the deaths behind the "over 20" figure in its own order. The public notice says members of the public may testify at the hearing.