New York City Jail Investigation - Safeguards Designed To Prevent Inmate Suicides Were Not Followed
Channel: News20
Date: 2014-06-27

New York City Jail Investigation - Safeguards Designed To Prevent Inmate Suicides Were Not Followed


In this June 25, 2014 photo, Tracie Morales stands with a photo of her son, Jamal Polo in New York. Polo committed suicide in May 2012 while jailed on sexual misconduct charges. Investigative documents obtained by The Associated Press on the 11 suicides in New York City jails over the past five years show that in at least nine cases, protocols and safeguards designed to prevent inmates from harming themselves were not followed. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

NEW YORK (AP) — In one case, a mentally ill New York City inmate hanged himself from a shower pipe on his third try in three days. During that stretch, orders to put him on 24-hour watch were apparently ignored, along with a screening form that said he was "thinking about killing himself."

Another inmate hanged himself with a bedsheet from an air vent in a solitary-confinement cell after repeatedly telling guards he was suicidal. The last time he said so, one of them replied, "If you have the balls, go ahead and do it."

In yet another case, an inmate hanged himself from a metal bed that he stood on end to create a scaffold, despite a year-old jailhouse directive to weld all beds to the floor. The directive was issued after another mentally ill man committed suicide in exactly the same way.

Investigative documents obtained by The Associated Press on the 11 suicides in New York City jails over the past five years show that in at least nine cases, safeguards designed to prevent inmates from harming themselves weren't followed.

"Is there a procedure? Yes. Did they follow it? Absolutely not," said a tearful John Giannotta, whose 41-year-old son Gregory used a jail jumpsuit to hang himself from an improperly exposed bathroom pipe last year even though he, too, was supposed to be on suicide watch. The psychiatrist's order wasn't entered into the computer system until hours after his death.
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New York City Jail Investigation - Safeguards Designed To Prevent Inmate Suicides Were Not Followed

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