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| Penn. Prison Officer Kills Himself; 5th in 10 Years |
| By Philadelphia Daily News |
| Published: 10/28/2002 |
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A Curran-Fromhold prison officer from Northeast Philadelphia shot himself to death in a car parked at the Franklin Mills mall last week, according to police. Paul Potts was the third officer at the prison to commit suicide since March 2000 and the fifth suicide in the ranks of city prison officers since 1992. A married father of four and graduate of Father Judge High School, Potts, 36, was found in a gold Chrysler in a parking lot near the mall. He had a gunshot wound to the head and was found holding a gun, said Sgt. Roland Lee, police spokesman. No suicide note was found. Potts, who made $31,701 a year, would have celebrated his third anniversary in the prison system on Oct. 25. Last January, Officer Patrick McIntyre was killed when he lay down in front of a southbound Amtrak train. In March 2000, Lt. Stephen Sliwinski committed suicide at his home after being transferred to Curran-Fromhold. A prison colleague of Potts' said he had observed a mood change in Potts over the last five weeks. Donald Moore, president of AFSCME District Council 33's Local 159, which represents the city's correction officers, said he was concerned that the city refuses to establish a crisis-intervention program to help employees deal with job stress. 'Correction officers have the kind of job where they don't know if they will be coming home,' Moore said. 'The city spends money on equipment but not for its employees.' Prison spokesman Robert Eskind said the city pays the union to run an employee-assistance program, which offers counseling. When the city tried to establish a 'critical-event policy' to provide counseling in the wake of a crisis, the union protested, he said. |
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