Jail deficiencies in November suicide, report finds

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Jail deficiencies in November suicide, report finds

fr jail Following discovery that a March suicide in the Jackson County Detention Center had occurred during an 85-minute gap in jailers’ rounds — the state minimum requirement is 30 minutes — the N.C. Department of Health and Human Resources took a second look at a November 2014 suicide that resulted in the death of Robbinsville resident Charles Moose, 36.

The resulting report found that things were amiss the day of Moose’s death as well. Records showed that jailers made no rounds between 10:09 and 11:02 a.m., a 53-minute gap. At 3:49 p.m., jailers found Moose hanging and called 911. But the next supervision round wasn’t conducted until 6:09 p.m., a gap of two hours and 20 minutes, the report said.

State law requires that jailers do a visual check of all inmates at least once every 30 minutes, with more frequent checks for inmates who are violent, intoxicated, suicidal or mentally ill.

However, that apparently had not been the way things were done at the Jackson County Detention Center. For instance, on the day of Steve Ross’ death March 13 — the same two jailers who were on duty during Moose’s suicide were on duty then — the jail log showed gaps in checks as large as 106 minutes. Few of the intervals logged that day met the 30-minute threshold.

Sheriff Chip Hall had little to say about the newly released report on Moose’s death from DHHS, saying he doesn’t want to discuss the issue until he’s sent DHHS the plan of correction they’ve called for in response to the findings.

“Our response is going to be the same to DHHS as the previous report for Ross,” Hall said.

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That response, submitted at the end of April after DHHS found fault with jail operations the day of Ross’ death, cited the Sheriff Department’s recent hiring of a jail administrator to be an on-the-ground manager of the jail’s day-to-day and Hall’s ongoing effort to write a new policy and procedure manual for the jail. Both the new position and the new manual are goals he’s been working toward since he took the sheriff’s office in December.

Moose’s death occurred while Jimmy Ashe was still sheriff. Hall won the election in November but did not assume office until December 2014. Ross’ death occurred in Hall’s fourth month on the job.

Hall’s plan of correction also called for increased staff training on indicators of suicidal tendencies and intoxication, and evaluation of the linens used in the jail. Both Ross and Moose had used sheets to make ropes.

Hall has also purchased additional “pipes,” wands that jailers use to electronically document their rounds. There hadn’t been enough before, jail staff told DHHS, so electronic records of jail rounds were even spottier than the manually kept ones.

The two jailers who worked the days of Ross’ and Moose’s deaths have kept their positions, receiving five days’ leave without pay as discipline. Hall declined to discuss the severity of the punishment, citing it as a confidential personnel matter.

“The officers have been disciplined for their actions, and I’m just going to leave it at that,” he said.

Because the sheriff is an elected position, management of his office is mostly outside control of the county commissioners or county manager.

Joe Kays, Moose’s stepfather, said he’s not rushing to judgment about the jailers’ responsibility.

“Maybe that’s the way things were run when they got there and they just continued doing it the same way,” Kays said. “It’s hard to say they were responsible if there was no accountability to keep them in line to start with.”

That said, he’s still grieving his stepson, who, despite being a repeat offender with a drug problem he just couldn’t shake, was generally a favorite in the jails where he spent much of his adult life, Kays said.

And Kays still believes that there are systemic problems in Jackson County Detention Center that need addressing. He’s been seeing an Asheville attorney to talk about his options.

“We’d like to get a little better handle on it before there’s another incident,” Kays said. “Two is too many. A third would be just uncalled for.”

Hall hasn’t asked commissioners for anything funding-wise in response to the suicides, Commission Chairman Brian McMahan said, so the issues at the jail are not currently a concern of the county commissioners. However, the county has contacted its insurance company about the situation, a routine phone call whenever anything comes up that could potentially result in a lawsuit.

“Any time that we have an incident that might generate a claim, out of courtesy to them we make them aware we have a situation,” explained County Manager Chuck Wooten.

The N.C. State Bureau of Investigation is currently looking into Ross’ death, and while information about Moose’s death may be contained in that report as the suicides occurred in the same facility and under the watch of the same jailers, the SBI is not investigating Moose’s death. That hasn’t changed with the release of DHHS’s most recent report, said SBI spokeswoman Teresa West.

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