Ariel Castro, who pled guilty last month to kidnapping and raping three young women in Cleveland, was found hanged in his cell this evening. Castro, who had been sentenced to life plus 1000 years in prison, was under protective custody, which means guards were required to check on him every half hour. He was rushed to the prison hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:52 P.M.
One correction I want to make. He was pronounced dead at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, not at the correctional facility. Prison medics attempted to resuscitate him, then rushed him to the OSU hospital. Makes little difference, though, he’s still dead.
The report reads “…required every 30 minutes at staggered intervals…”
What does staggered mean? Not regular? I mean seams like you can pretty easily hang yourself (if you got a shirt/blanket and something to tie it to) in less than 30 minutes. Just curious as to how this was supposed to be effective - especially if he knows he is being checked on.
I explained it to a new employee once. Official policy states you’re not dead until you’ve been pronounced dead by a doctor. We did not have full time doctors on staff. So if a prisoner appeared to be seriously ill or injured - say we found him with his head cut off - we would send him to a hospital. Upon arrival at the hospital, a doctor would look at him and say “What the fuck is this guy doing here? He’s dead.”
So then I’d file my report and when I got to the part where it asked where the prisoner died, I would truthfully put down he died at the hospital.
It means than he’s not checked on at 10:05, 10:35, 11:05 etc. He’s checked on once between 10:00 and 10:30 and again between 10:30 and 11:00. Those check-ins could theoretically be as many as 59 minutes apart or 1 minute apart (10:00 and again at 10:59 vs 10:29 and 10:30). It could also possible that the interval is actually “twice an hour” which would further vary the possible times.
It’s supposed to be more effective than regular intervals by making it difficult to predict when they would come. Essentially preventing someone from working 20 minutes on something prohibited in relative privacy taking a break and starting again with confidence of another 20 minutes of privacy. You’ve certainly seen or read this trope in fiction where the protagonist watches and times his move in between the guards “rounds”.
That said, obviously nothing would prevent a determined suicidal person short of constant supervision which isn’t practical.
You people saying “Good” should be ashamed of yourselves. I would think, with the high caliber of people we have on this board, that we’d be above that sort of thing.
Nah, I’m just bull shit’n. Good riddance fucker!