Woman Left in Cell for 4 Days Without Water, Food, Toilet or a Bed

I would say it's unbelievable, but, of course, it's totally, depressingly believable. For four days, Adriana Torres-Flores, a 38-year-old undocumented immigrant who has been in the US for 19 years, was locked in a 9x10 holding cell in Arkansas, where she had no sustenance but her own urine and slept on the floor using her shoe as a pillow.

A bailiff had apparently forgotten that he placed Ms. Torres-Flores, a mother of three, in the cell last Thursday, and simply left her in the empty courthouse, in Fayetteville, over the weekend, said the chief deputy of the Washington County Sheriff's Department, Jay Cantrell. A snowstorm meant that there were far fewer people than usual working at the courthouse on Friday.

"He just flat forgot about her," Mr. Cantrell said, adding that the bailiff, Jarrod Hankins, had been placed on administrative leave, having been on the job a few months. "It was just a horrible mistake," Mr. Cantrell said.

Torres-Flores was taken to the hospital after she was found lying on the floor of the cell and is now at home recovering. Cantrell says that there will be an investigation, but assures "there was no malicious intent. The whole thing is terrible." Why, yes. It really, really is. But not so terrible that anyone should be jumping to crazy conclusions like his gross negligence makes Hankins unfit for his job, I guess. That needs to be determined by an investigation.