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| Immigrant was taken off suicide watch |
| By Valarie Honeycutt Spears |
| Published: 04/21/2009 |
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Salvadoran immigrant Ana Romero Rivera had been removed from a suicide watch at the recommendation of mental health officials a day before she hung herself in a cell last year, according to newly released jail records. The August 2008 death of Romero, 44, in the Franklin County Regional Jail has been the subject of several investigations, and the case has become a rallying point for Central Kentucky immigration reform advocates. The documents, obtained by the Herald-Leader through an open records request, provide a detailed explanation of what happened to Romero in the last hours of her life. She was found hanging Aug. 21. by a bedsheet in her cell and was pronounced dead early the next day. The reports reveal that Romero's mental condition declined when federal immigration officials delayed her deportation because they brought the wrong documents to the jail when they came to pick her up. She wanted to be deported to El Salvador to see her sick mother, according to a mental health report written the day before she died. At 6:45 a.m. Aug. 20, consultants from a Lexington-based mental health crisis network for jails spoke with jail staff by telephone and determined that Romero was depressed and at a high risk of suicide. "She has been crying and refusing food for 48 hours and also making herself vomit," the mental health report said. The behavior began after immigration officials told Romero that it would be two more weeks before they would return to get her. At 7 a.m. that day, jail officials put Romero in a special cell and removed her bedsheet and anything else she could use to commit suicide. She was observed every 15 minutes. But, by that afternoon, a mental health professional said she was at low risk to commit suicide, and she was placed in a regular cell. She was found hanging at 11:14 p.m. the next day. Romero "was on her knees at the foot of her bunk," a jail report said. She positioned herself on a lower bunk, extended a white sheet above her through a hole in the top bunk and tied it around her neck. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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