One of many breakout stars of Netflix’s vastly controversial documentary collection Unlocked has died on the age of 29 simply 30 days earlier than he was on account of be launched.
John ‘Eastside’ McAllister was discovered lifeless in his bunk in Pulaski Correctional Heart in Arkansas, on Sunday, June 2, officers stated. His household stated that the inmate’s reason for dying as not been established.
The premise of Unlocked: A Jail Experiment noticed inmates given a level of independence and autonomy inside the jail. The eight-part collection started airing in April.
Authorities stated that McAllister was rushed to Jefferson Regional Medical Heart in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the place he was pronounced lifeless simply earlier than 9:00am.
Homicide and suicide have been dominated out by officers, experiences KATV.
John McAllister, 29, pictured in the course of the filming of Netflix’s Unlocked
Within the present, McAllister operated a tattoo parlor outdoors of his jail cell
McAllister was serving time for ten drug-related felony counts, breaking and getting into, theft of property and gun possession. He pleaded responsible in 2023 and was sentenced to a few years laborious time.
The late inmate had an extended felony historical past stretching again to when he was 19 years. He had achieved 14 totally different stretches behind bars.
On the present, McAllister is featured working a tattoo parlor inside his jail cell.
Throughout one episode, he defined that being on the fallacious aspect of the regulation gave him an ‘adrenaline rush excessive’ and that he spent his life round criminals.
A GoFundMe web page has been arrange for McAllister by his aunt, Melissa Regan. The time of writing, the web page has raised $340 of a $15,000 aim.
The cash shall be used to pay for McAllister’s funeral in addition to to move his stays to relations in Omaha, Nebraska.
‘His sudden passing has left our household devastated. The reason for his dying is underneath investigation,’ one part of the web page reads.
The household says {that a} celebration of life will happen for the general public.
In a 2016 Fb put up, his aunt accused of McAllister and his girlfriend of stealing a spread of electronics from her house, together with an XBox and a laptop computer. His aunt stated that her nephew was scuffling with a meth habit on the time.
On his Fb, McAllister stated that he attended Omaha North Magnet Excessive Faculty in Nebraska and was residing in Vilonia, Arkansas, previous to his incarceration, since August 2021.
In a GoFundMe web page that has been arrange by his household, his aunt stated that kin have been left shocked by McAllister’s sudden passing
Final month, Pulaski County Sheriff Eric Higgins defended the choice to permit the collection to be filmed on the county jail.
The choice has prompted scrutiny from native and state officers, who stated they weren’t conscious of the collection till shortly earlier than its premiere.
The collection focuses on a six-week experiment that gave inmates in a single cellblock extra freedom by unlocking their cell doorways. Higgins stated he didn’t method Netflix or Fortunate 8, the manufacturing firm that filmed it, concerning the collection.
‘I took motion to make sure that we now have a reentry program to assist those that are booked into our facility to return out and be higher people,’ Higgins advised members of the Joint Efficiency Assessment Committee.
Republican Sen. Jonathan Dismang stated he does not have an issue with the sheriff’s reentry program or making an attempt one thing new to deal with recidivism.
However he stated he was involved with it being the main target of a present, and questioned the way it may very well be thought of an experiment if it was being filmed.
‘I feel it is an exploitation of your prisoners that you simply allowed a movie crew to return in,’ Dismang stated.
Unlocked: A Jail Experiment follows an experiment by Pulaski County Sheriff Eric Higgins that sees the inmates allowed to seemingly roam free contained in the Pulaski County jail in Little Rock
Arkansas officers are probing a $60,000 fee made by producers of Netflix ‘s controversial Unlocked docuseries
One other Republican lawmaker stated he was apprehensive about what the present would do to the state’s popularity, evaluating it to a 1994 HBO documentary about gangs in Little Rock.
‘For the general public that watched this docuseries, that is the primary time they’ve ever been uncovered to Pulaski County, or maybe to the state of Arkansas,’ Rep. David Ray stated.
‘I fear concerning the model harm that our state sustains from this being the primary notion of our state to different folks.’
Pulaski County Choose Barry Hyde — the county’s prime elected administrator — stated he wasn’t conscious of the collection till he noticed a trailer earlier than its premiere.
Hyde has stated that the settlement between the sheriff and the manufacturing firm was unlawful as a result of Hyde did not signal it. The county has since returned a $60,000 examine from the manufacturing firm that filmed the collection.
Higgins, a Democrat who was first elected in 2018 and is the county’s first Black sheriff, has had the backing of some group members.
The Little Rock chapter of the NAACP has supported Higgins’ determination, and supporters of the sheriff stuffed a committee room for Tuesday’s listening to.
Democratic Sen. Linda Chesterfield stated Higgins’ supporters are in search of ‘somebody to supply humane therapy for individuals who have been handled inhumanely.’
‘We’re viewing this by totally different lenses, and it is vital we respect the lenses by which we view it,’ Chesterfield stated.
