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| Second Death in as Many Days Reported at Maine Jail |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 09/06/2002 |
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Officials were investigating the second death in as many days at the Penobscot County Jail. Bruce Hansen, a 42-year-old transient, was found dead in an observation cell early Tuesday, less than 18 hours after another prisoner at the jail hanged himself. Hansen appeared to have died of natural causes linked to alcoholism, said Glenn Ross, who was sworn in as sheriff just hours after Hansen was found dead. His body was transported to the state Medical Examiner's Office in Augusta for an autopsy. Hansen, who had been living on the streets, was arrested Saturday by Bangor police for criminal trespassing and was being held at the jail after he was unable to pay his $10 bail fee. Hansen was drunk when he was brought into the jail and was kept in a special observation room while undergoing detoxification. Officers monitored Hansen ever 15 minutes, the sheriff said, but thought he had been sleeping until they determined that he wasn't breathing. ''In our business there's always a risk of something like this happening because of the population we deal with on a day-to-day basis,'' Ross said. ''It's unfortunate that we've had these deaths, but they are unrelated to each other. ''One of our great concerns is the fact that people in medical and psychiatric crises are being sent to county jails when they first should be sent to mental health or medical facilities,'' he said. ''We're a default agency. ... Every jail in Maine continues to face this same risk on a day-to-day basis.'' Another inmate at the jail, Gardner Whalen, took his life Monday by hanging himself with a bed sheet. It was the state's sixth jail suicide since April. |
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