A former correctional officer who is being sued after a deaf man’s murder in a Baltimore jail said she was “placed in an impossible position” by her supervisors, made to guard the dormitory where he died “alone, untrained for that post, and unaware of the risks involved.”

The statement from Olabisi Asekere, one of the named defendants in the wrongful death lawsuit over the killing of Javarick Gantt, provided new details about how jail staff allegedly supervised the 34-year-old detainee, who was deaf and used sign language to communicate. The statement was part of a declaration filed in court papers late last month.

Locked up on misdemeanor assault charges, Gantt ended up in a cell with Gordon Staron, a convicted killer who was suspected of another murder at the time and who weighed twice as much as Gantt, according to court filings. The two shared a cell for a few days before Gantt was found dead on Oct. 6, 2022.

The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services has declined to explain publicly the circumstances leading up to Gantt’s murder, a high-profile case that sent shock waves through Deaf and disability advocate communities. State’s Attorney Ivan Bates personally led the prosecution against Staron, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life without parole a year ago.

Asekere was deposed as part of a civil lawsuit filed by Gantt’s family that claimed staff at the state-run Baltimore Central Booking & Intake Center failed to stay at the post overlooking the tier where Gantt and Staron were housed. The lawsuit also claimed staff falsified records about security checks that never took place.

The pretrial detention facility in downtown Baltimore has a capacity to house about 895 detainees. The union representing correctional officers has called out staffing shortages, saying the facility needs about 300 correctional officers to operate smoothly but has at times had roughly half that many working.

The corrections department declined to comment Thursday on Asekere’s declaration in the civil lawsuit. Department officials have declined to fulfill public records requests from The Banner seeking documents from internal investigations, citing various exemptions.

But in legal filings the state Attorney General’s Office argued in October that the lawsuit should be dismissed, claiming it failed to establish the correctional officials should be held personally liable for Gantt’s death, among other reasons.

In her statement, Asekere said, around 1:30 a.m. on the day of Gantt’s murder, she was ordered by a supervisor to cover the post overseeing Gantt’s dorm. She wrote that she was “left alone for the remainder of the shift.”

Asekere, who said she typically worked in the female dorms, said the lawsuit against her had inaccuracies, including the timeline and allegations that audible struggles coming from the cell went unanswered.

Based on commentary from medics who responded, Asekere said in her statement she theorized Gantt’s death occurred “well before my assignment began.”

“I respectfully assert that I was used as a scapegoat,” she wrote, asking the judge to dismiss the lawsuit against her. “I was suspended for a year and ultimately terminated, while others who contributed to the systemic failures remain employed.”

Asekere named those failures as “structural imbalance and inadequate security protocols,” “insufficient training and staffing,” “classification and traffic errors” and “corruption, favoritism, discrimination, and toxic workplace culture.”