Mr. (Ale)Xander do you have any concerns about the number of deaths in the county jail over such a short period of time? Is it too much speculation in your field to tie torturing inmates with tasers, falsifying police reports, sending innocent people to prison, threatening fellow officers, stalking ex-wives and threatening them, to hanging inmates? the reason I ask such questions is that what seems to be being addressed through the law suit and the work of Sandra Ahten, CUCPJ (that you seem VERY PISSED OFF About) is the climate of the jail and the fact that negligence, cover ups and misconduct are running rampid? Do you disagree? What do you offer as a reasonable solution to the eroding of the public trust resulting from the incidents surrounding County officers and the deaths?

"How did Larry get drugs into the jail?"

Obviously, the CIA introduced it as part of a racist conspiracy.

Seriously, Brian, is this the first time you've heard of the fact that people are able to get drugs in jail?

Drug smugglers sometimes hide drugs in their rectums. Maybe that was it. Who knows?

"Has Walsh done anything to prevent this in the future?"

Well, they have taken some steps. What would you suggest they do further? Rectal probes of everyone who comes into the jail, to make sure nobody's stashing drugs where the proverbial sun doesn't shine? In fact, the only way to make absolutely sure no drugs get into the jail is with that and other gross violations of the rights of the people in the jail, that, if they were actually implemented, you would no doubt complain about at great length.

"There are rumors that Larry had been crying and screaming before he was found collapsed.
Should he have received medical attention earlier?"

Oh, there are rumors? Well, why didn't you say so, that changes everything! I'm sure guys in jail would have no reason to just make stuff like that up about the guards.

Maybe he should have received medical attention earlier. It's a litle hard to say, with the pretty scant amount of evidence here.

"If Larry was acting paranoid and delusional, should he have received a mental health evaluation?"

Well, that's an interesting question. They did the one when he first got there. What he cooperative? Did he refuse treatment? Your article doesn't really say.

"Why would Larry have tried to swallow a bag of crack?
Any crack head would know that simply swallowing a rock is going to give you a bad stomach ache."

To hide it from the guards, would be my guess. Or perhaps just to destroy the evidence if he was afraid of getting strip-searched later. Crackheads would probably know it's not a good idea, but I've seen reports that crackheads don't always act particularly rationally. Especially when they're already paranoid and delusional.

For what it's worth, I've actually seen an episode of Cops where a guy swallowed some crack, and they had to get the guy to admit what he'd done and send him to the hospital. So it's not unheard-of.

"Was Larry hiding the bag in his mouth - maybe so.
The bag may have had a small hole.
But how was the bag split open enough for its contents to be released?"

He was using a cheap bag? This has to be the lamest conspiracy theory I've ever seen, if this is your evidence.

"Was there foul play involved?"

Probably not. Negligence? Possibly. But what are you really suggesting, that they went into his room, stuffed a ripped bag of crack in his mouth, and then forced him to swallow it? Why would they do that? Was this guy filming documentaries or something?

Looks like it was hidden.

I thought it was powder cocaine too, at first. That's how it was described in the original article. BD was the one who said it was crack, so I really don't know.

If you look here you'll see where Brian originally said it was powder cocaine:

http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace/2006-July/005953.html

Now he's saying it was crack. I don't know who to believe here, Brian or Brian.

"I find it rather ironic that Xander, for all his trollishness, basically admits that the situation indicates that negligence by jail personnel seems plausible. We don't let jail inmates have guns or knives, so the fact that someone who has drugs on them in jail indicates incompetence on the part of the staff, if not the officers who brought him in."

I said it was possible. And that was just for the fact that they may not have gotten him medical treatment in time. As far as negligence for allowing drugs into the jail, well, it depends on how well it was hidden on the way in. Like I said, there's a balance between conducting fool-proof searches and protecting the civil rights of the people in jail. I don't think it's necessarily "negligence" to not expose everyone entering the jail to, for example, rectal examinations.

"he fundamentally offers no dispute with the facts BD cites to lead us to a legal conclusion other than that Champaign County Sheriff, who runs the jail, is liable for what happened to Mr. Larry."

If a guy wants to swallow a bag of cocaine badly enough, I'm having a hard time seeing how the police are really going to be able to stop him.

And, finally: "certainly an autopsy should have been ordered under the circumstances."

Why? What would be the point, for the purposes of this discussion? Brian already seems to be asserting that the cops shoved the bag in his mouth and made him try to swallow it. If the autopsy turned up evidence that he'd overdosed on cocaine, he'd just take that as more evidence that he's right.

"As we know, powder cocaine is a white drug and crack a black drug."

I don't know if that's true or not, but I know that if I said something like that, I'd be called a racist for sure. I was a little confused as to why you would even bring this up, until I realized that you were probably trying to cast doubt on the fact that it was powder cocaine in the bag. Nice to know that racial stereotypes are considered admissable evidence in the court of the UCIMC.

"A coroner's jury recommended Walsh to better check ins."

Yes, they did recommend better searches. But the link you gave told us pretty much why he wasn't searched more closely.

"A 20-minute mental health evaluation was conducted on Larry at 12:45 the afternoon of May 27. The nurse found that he had high blood pressure and was acting paranoid and delusional. Yet at that time, there was no indication that Larry was under the influence of drugs.

Huckstep claimed that because of Larry’s actions, he was not 'dressed out' in processing – he remained in his street clothes rather than being given the usual jail garb"

So, basically, because he was acting so erratically, they didn't want to approach him to make him take off his clothes and change into jail clothes. Most likely, this is because they were afraid he would react defensively, start a struggle, and then get hurt. Pretty humane, in my mind. If they HAD tried to change him while he was in this state of mind, and he HAD fought back and gotten hurt, you would have howled about THAT for god knows how long. So what do you want them to do? Tranquilize him? Is THAT more humane?

"They said nothing about full body cavity searches, which I believe are inhumane."

Well, then. Some drugs are still probably going to get into the jail, if people want to get them in badly enough. Something like this is probably going to happen again, and just like this time, it won't be the fault of the guards.

"And obviously a lawyer has found enough evidence to warrant spending time and money on a legal suit."

Is the lawyer taking the case for free? If not, I think the word you're looking for is "getting" money rather than "spending" it.

"What about Larry's two children who were left without a father?
Have we no heart for those who have drug addictions?"

Well, sure. I don't see why having a heart for them means we ought to insinuate that the jail guards were involved in "foul play", as you put it.

Actually, I think "almost certainly not foul play" is probably more accurate. Admit it, Brian's going off the deep end here.

"Since the nurse who examined Larry found him to be paranoid and delusional then why wasn't he placed under some type of observation or taken to the 5th floor of Provena where he could have received the type of care needed to make sure that he wouldn't harm himself or anyone else?"

THAT, at least, is a good point. I don't know what the protocol is for putting people in the fifth floor. I would imagine part of the criteria would be that the person appears to be a risk of harming himself or someone else, and there's no way of knowing, based on this report, whether or not he was. Remember, he probably wasn't even trying to hurt himself here. He was trying to hide his bag of cocaine from the guards.

If he didn't present as a risk, then I'm not necessarily sure anyone has a right to make him undergo psychiatric treatment. Maybe they offered him psychiatric treatment and he refused it? It's really hard to say.

"This particular case serves to highlight the disparity in how people are treated based on social, economic, and racial constructs."

Really? How? Are you sure it's not just evidence of what happens if you get arrested for disorderly contact, trespassing and theft, and then decide to eat a bag of cocaine while you're in jail? He wasn't pulled over for DWB, his ex-girlfriend called the police when he refused to leave her apartment. While you may like to imagine he'd have received better treatment if he were white, I really don't see what evidence you have for it. Are you sure this isn't just sort of a knee-jerk "A black man died, so it musta been racism!" thing?

"Combine that with the fact that the death rate in the Champaign County jail is higher than the national average is enough to bring about questions that need answering."

Well, five in two years is probably above average, but it's such a small number that it's hard to say just how much it means. Particularly when one of them is a freak case like this. I'm not saying that there AREN'T problems with the Champaign county jail system. Just that this particular case is something different.

"It appears to me that having an education or training with some substance to it is not something that our current system is looking for and that is most unfortunate."

You're probably right about this. However, I'd be interested to know what kind of training the guards undergo after they get hired.

"If it was your son or daughter in jail, you wouldn't be so flippant and stupid in your remarks."

Tell me where I'm being flippant or stupid. An example would be nice. The fact is, the guy put a bag of cocaine in his mouth and died. Tragic, I admit, but nobody's fault but his own.

"It strikes me as odd that law enforcement can always find dope on black males when it suits their needs, but somehow can't keep dope out of the jail."

Really. They can ALWAYS find drugs on black people when it suits their needs? If their goal is to lock up as many black people as they can, this would seem to indicate that the cops have found EVERY OUNCE of drugs possessed by EVERY black person in this city. That's a pretty bold statement there. They can't keep drugs out of schools or apartments or anywhere else, is it really any surprise they can't stop it in jail? What if, like I said yesterday, someone smuggles it into jail in a body cavity? I'm assuming you have no problem with everyone being subjected to a body cavity search upon entering jail then, right? If you DO have a problem with this, then I can tell you exactly how drugs would get into jails.

"If there ever was a wasteful government jobs program that needed to be ended and the resources devoted to it redirected toward more productive uses, it's the "drug war" -- and did you ever notice how much it's a whole lot like the Iraq War? Dumb policies _lost_ and most of us would prefer something smarter be adopted in their place. Somehow, I think it's pandering politicians and their stupid ideas like fighting 40-year+ long wars that are obvious failures in order to get reelected that need some educational qualifications."

No argument from me at all here.

"Yeah, people may categorize certain types of dope as being "white" or "black" but the sentencing guidelines enshrined in law reinforce that far more than the cultural assumptions that BD noted. The federal sentencing commission has called for revisions from the current disparity in sentencing from 100 to 1 between equivalent weights of crack adn powder cocaine again this week. They've been doing this for 10 years. Some conservative even agreed with this, suggesting the disparity should be more like 20 to 1. God, some people are stupid -- and not all of them are jail guards. It's all coke and all kinds of people do all kinds of it. The damage the law itself causes is swept under the rug."

I honestly don't know what this has to do with anything. Larry wasn't in jail for drugs at all, but for shoving his ex-girlfriend and stealing her keys.

"Just like some people want to do with the death of Quentin Larry."

Nice stinger. I don't know who wants to sweep anything under the rug, but it's catchy.

Xander wrote about the 'drug war":

"No argument from me at all here."

Is there any explanation then, besides hypocrisy, for Xander's impassioned defense of this corrupt legal system?

What exactly am I defending here? The simple fact here is, Quentin Larry put a bag of cocaine in his mouth and died. That's all. His being placed in jail had NOTHING to do with the drug war. It had to do with him trespassing on his ex-girlfriend's property and stealing her keys (which, for what it's worth, is not the first time it happened. https://secure.jtsmith.com/clerk/7d3jawq1ag36.asp).

So, he wasn't in jail for drugs. There's no evidence of physical force against him. Therefore, pointing out that Quentin Larry's death was an accident has nothing to do with the drug war OR the corrupt legal system. Just because the criminal justice system is corrupt doesn't mean that it's responsible for EVERYTHING.

If I'm passionate about anything here, it's about people making stupid, and potentially libelous, charges against people with NO EVIDENCE AT ALL. BD claims there IS evidence. His mysterious silence when asked about it leads me to believe that he's not exactly telling the truth.

Well, not even silence, really. If it was silence, I could believe he just hadn't read it yet. But no, he always comes back and always says something like:

"There's evidence.
They killed Larry.
Think of the poor children.

BD"

That's actually worse than silence, because now we know he's deliberately not telling us.

Even serial murderers don't kill EVERYONE they meet, nor are they responsible for every death in the city they live in. Just because I realize that Larry's death was an accident doesn't really mean I'm defending the justice system. Why is this so hard for you people to understand?

Then people would not feel the need to hide things like bags of coke.

BTW, the bag was in his mouth. Accidental death due to cocaince intoxication is typically caused by _swallowing_ the bag, which then bursts or otherwise opens within the digestive tract. It's rather implausible for a person to die from sucking on a baggie in their mouth. Not saying it couldn't happen, but it ordinarily doesn't under such a scenario as described.

Irregardless, the jail had custody of Mr. Larry and knew he was exhibiting strange behavior, behavior which seems linked to his death in some way. The failure to provide a secure environment or to render timely medical aid certainly could represent malfeasance, neglect, or possibly even criminal activity on the part of someone other than Mr. Larry.

It's even possible that Mr. Larry snorted from the baggie of cocaine, after successfully eluding what were apparently inadequate security measures during prisoner intake. It would be embarrassing -- as well as representing grounds for a lawsuit on the part of R. Larry's survivors -- for such a thing to happen in the jail. It's even possible to conclude that having found Mr. Larry unconscious that someone might have stuck the baggie into his mouth, in a clumsy attempt to make it look more like suicide -- not that this would have absolved the sheriff's office from legal responsibility -- but sometimes people do make dumb decisions, especially if they realize they've already fucked up by allowing Mr. Larry continued access to the drugs he might have brought into jail with him.

I won't call you an idiot, Xander, but you are at least as blinded by your own prejudices and assumptions as BD is by his.

"Then people would not feel the need to hide things like bags of coke."

Well, I suppose you're right about that. Keep in mind, it's BD and the others who agree with him who think that every possible step should be taken to keep drugs out of the jail. If BD had his way, Larry STILL would have felt the need to hide it.

"Irregardless, the jail had custody of Mr. Larry and knew he was exhibiting strange behavior, behavior which seems linked to his death in some way. The failure to provide a secure environment or to render timely medical aid certainly could represent malfeasance, neglect, or possibly even criminal activity on the part of someone other than Mr. Larry."

Yes. Negligence. Which I already stated was possible. Several times, in fact. What I'M talking about is BD's "excessive physical force" comments. And his "foul play" ones. You know, the ones he steadfastly refuses to give us the evidence for. And the ones that would seem to contradict the autopsy that was performed.

"It's even possible to conclude that having found Mr. Larry unconscious that someone might have stuck the baggie into his mouth, in a clumsy attempt to make it look more like suicide -- not that this would have absolved the sheriff's office from legal responsibility -- but sometimes people do make dumb decisions"

Did you even bother to read the link to the discussion about the autopsy results? I take it you didn't, so here is, in fact, what BD wrote about it earlier: "The conclusion of the coroner’s inquest was that Larry’s death was accidental, a heart attack that resulted from a high level of cocaine toxicity in his bloodstream. But the question remains as to how Larry was able to get drugs in the jail."

High level of cocaine toxicity. So I'm guessing the bag wasn't put into his mouth after he died. But hey, making baseless accusations is fun, isn't it?

"I won't call you an idiot, Xander, but you are at least as blinded by your own prejudices and assumptions as BD is by his."

And what prejudices and assumptions would those be, if you don't mind me asking? It's "prejudice" not to jump to conclusions based on no evidence?

"Actually, I can do no such thing. Since the attorney's for Larry's estate did furnish BD with a copy of the complaint and the information he posted is based on actual legal documents I really can't fault him on his information. Now I'm sure the next question is how do I know that BD has the documentation and the answer is he brought it to the last CUCPJ meeting and he showed it to me."

So what of his documentation gives ANY INDICATION AT ALL that there was "foul play" involved? Not negligence, but actual attempts at manslaughter. According to the autopsy results, there was apparently no evidence of blunt force trauma or any other trauma. So what kind of foul play would it have been? Did the police hand him a bag of cocaine and convince him it was a bag of crushed-up Smarties or something? Did they use mind control implants to make him swallow his bag of coke on purpose? I'm really wondering here.

"The documents did not make any reference (that I can recall) of an autopsy and that is why I did ask about that."

Well, then it would seem that his documentation wasn't really all that great, then, wouldn't it? I mean, that seems to be pretty much the most important piece of evidence. And he left that out?

"I also did some research on Jude Redwood and she is not an ambulance chaser here. She has taken on several cases that have involved issues pertaining to civil rights."

Did she take THEM on for free?

Civil rights and what-have-you...

For all you shoe-shine boys out there...

http://www.classcaster.org/resserver.php?blogId=100&resource=redwood.pdf

Now we're getting somewhere.

http://www.corrections.com/news/article?articleid=13123

This says there was no evidence of trauma. Was there? If so, why didn't you bother putting it into the article? Why didn't you say anything at all about any physical force at all? You just came in, made baseless allegations, and wandered off. So what evidence of physical force is there?

But why am I not expecting a response from BD here?

Longtime users of the site tend to avoid feeding the trolls. It doesn't surprise me at all that BD is mostly ignoring your red herrings, strawmen, and non sequitirs.

I hardly see how asking for evidence of his claims is a red herring, strawman, or non sequitir. Do you, in fact, know what those words even mean? They refer to statements, not questions.

I could, but I tend to be pretty busy during business hours. I have what they call a "full-time job", you see. That's also why I can't hang out at the courthouse all day.

You've read all that stuff. Why don't you just TELL us what the basis is? See, if you did that, then everyone who reads this website would know all at once. We wouldn't have to keep individually calling the law office and bugging the people there. Why would you write a whole long article and leave it out, if the evidence is so good anyway?

Negligence kills just as surely as intent. It can result in a charge that is less than intentional homicide, but it's still criminal.

What I'm talking about here is the claims that there was excessive physical force against Larry. Which is looking less and less likely to me with each passing hour. You know why? There's apparently no evidence for it. Like I said, you'd think people would be happy about that, wouldn't they?

As for neglect. Well, it could be pointed out that Larry was an adult, and therefore has some responsibility for his OWN well-being. It could then be pointed out that if he hadn't stuffed the damn cocaine in his mouth, he'd still be with us today.

This is the cops' fault, of course. Just like everything else.

Second Degree Murder : "At the time of the killing he is acting under a sudden and intense passion resulting from serious provocation by the individual killed or another whom the offender endeavors to kill, but he negligently or accidentally causes the death of the individual killed" (720 ILCS 5/9-2 (1))

Of course, this charge is not brought about for purely negligent behavior, as both conditions must apply.

A lot of charges are filed for criminally negligent behavior - however, criminal negligence is not exactly the same as negligence. In the case of Mr. Larry, the Sheriff's Office would certainly have committed a criminally negligent act had Mr. Larry been brought in on drug-related charges.

you're way off base with this...that's all I'll say.

I don't think so - the poster asked for an exact charge that involved negligence and death, not an exact charge for this case. This charge satisfies both of those conditions.

This might fit under some sort of criminally negligent homicide thing if they knew he needed urgent medical treatment and denied it to him. So far, I haven't seen much evidence for that, and I doubt we will unless BD comes back from wherever he's gone off too.

To me, it seems a little unlikely. Because they were able to revive him with CPR, my guess would be that he wasn't lying there for that long.

What exactly is "a lot of charges?" Please give some examples of criminally negligent behavior please.

Do you know how stupid you sound when the only thing you can say is to make some stupid comment about trolls? That gets sooooo old.

It does get old, just like it gets old when trolls condemn the opinions of other, claim to have facts, and then just offer their own even more biased set of facts.

Quit boring us and go back to Icky Pundit.

I don't see why he/she WOULDN'T go to IP. Pretty much everyone else already has, it seems.

The "quit boring us" isn't entirely fair, though. If you hadn't noticed, there's nothing else going on. This place is a ghost town.

Really, until someone goes ahead and actually goes to the trouble to write a new article or something, there's really not much else to do but sit around calling each other trolls. So, carry on, I guess.

Or you'll just reinforce the belief that you, most of all, are just here to troll.

This place gets slow sometimes. Judging it by who is willing to talk to the trolls is about like judging the American's people's disgust with Iraq by the Democrats willingness to cave in on mandatory benchmarks of progress or deadlines.

I really don't.

"Judging it by who is willing to talk to the trolls is about like judging the American's people's disgust with Iraq by the Democrats willingness to cave in on mandatory benchmarks of progress or deadlines."

Read that sentence and tell me it makes sense, or what it has to do with anything. Go on. I dare you.

You know, at LEAST I'm discussing the issues at hand here. I'm one of the few. Are you? I've been here for like a week. And I've been asking BD what evidence he has for his "foul play" comments. What are you doing? Just sitting there, calling me a troll. Have fun with that.

And what do you mean, "sometimes"? There were ten articles posted in the last two months on this site, half of which got fewer than ten comments. The only ones that DID get more were when people like me showed up and pointed out the problems with what the writers said.

Half of the articles were also written by one white college teacher. So where are the oppressed and dispossessed masses, who are supposed to be flocking to the ONE place on the internet where they've got a forum for their views? Either they really don't exist, or they just don't care too much about this website. If either one is the case, then I ask you, what is really the point?

For what it's worth, I'm not even signed up on IP. It's just better than this site, is all.

You obviously REALLY are just hanging out here to tell us how much you think we suck.

BTW, if you are"not even signed up on IP" it's only because you're "unsigned up." A number of people told me how you and wayward were having a love-in about each other's "work" over there, so I had to go see it myself:
http://www.illinipundit.com/2007/04/27/patrick-thompson-discussion#comments

For all your whining about BD, you've never really offered any real evidence that disproves his basic contention that race results in greatly disparate outcomes in Champaign County. Nor has he ever claimed that was all there was to it, just that race is a statistically accurate predictor. If you're African-American in Champaign County, you should do you best to avoid getting involved with law enforcement at any level, it's unlikely to do you any good.

You waffle around the edges about the way he says things, but nothing I've seen you write undermines what BD has observed about the way "justice" works in Champaign County.

I know it irritates you when he asks, 'What should be done?" but I think his expectations, along with most readers here, are a lot more than the NOTHING that you continue to prescribe.

Thou dost protests too much to be anything other than a troll.

"A number of people told me how you and wayward were having a love-in about each other's "work" over there, so I had to go see it myself:
http://www.illinipundit.com/2007/04/27/patrick-thompson-discussion#comments"

If that is really true, then I know a number of people who need to get lives.

"You waffle around the edges about the way he says things, but nothing I've seen you write undermines what BD has observed about the way 'justice' works in Champaign County."

This is because you're not paying attention. BD claims that Quentin Larry was the victim of foul play. He wasn't. I asked him for evidence, and right now, he's apparently off in some corner sulking somewhere. Go ahead. Look up in the past comments if you don't believe me. I ask him, he says something pointless, and doesn't give the evidence he claims he has.

"I know it irritates you when he asks, 'What should be done?" but I think his expectations, along with most readers here, are a lot more than the NOTHING that you continue to prescribe."

I didn't say that nothing should be done. I think people should be informed that you'll probably die if you eat bags of cocaine. Perhaps schoolchildren should be shown a puppet show about what happens when you eat cocaine, or shown a cartoon about Carl, the Cocaine-Swallowing Capybara.

If it seems flippant, it's because you don't seem to have even responded to anything I've said on this thread.

Interesting you should mention wayward, though. She wrote a whole long article about race in Champaign County, and the arrests based on it. So far, she's the only one who bothered to put up any actual statistics here. Then she got purged. And yet, I guess it's ME who doesn't want to deal with the facts here. Whatever.

"Thou dost protests too much to be anything other than a troll."

Well, at least I've signed up a user name.

Please, don't confuse us with facts.

Most News-Gazette stories leave more questions unanswered than they answer. News-Gazette reporting usually is limited to repeating official views and reports. It tends to feature hero-worship of the forces of repression and gives little attention to civil and human rights. The blinders that News-Gazette reporters wear are part of the reason why conditions in the jail got so bad in the first place.

Indymedia is for those who've gotten past the gullible phase of relying in the News-Gazette for their news.

Well, at least it IS news. I mean, it's still better than nothing, which is about how much BD told us in his little essay. He's the "investigative journalist" around here. If he found something to contradict that, why didn't he tell us?

One way of reading this story is as a triumph of the police in accepting his human rights. I mean, it was his bag of cocaine, right? And his mouth. If he wants to stick HIS bag of cocaine in HIS mouth, as long as he's not hurting anyone else, isn't it HIS right to do so if he wants? If the cops had done more to stop him, you could argue that that's repressing his right of self-ownership.

So it sounds like your problem with this is that the cops weren't repressive enough. A fine sentiment for the UCIMC...

I think this is what anonymous was referring to as "the forces of repression".

"Mr. Larry had refused to leave an apartment of his ex-girlfriend, took her keys and pushed her, the lieutenant said. Officers found him in the area of the complex and arrested him, he said."

Because Larry was black, the police decided to repress his inalienable right to shove people and steal their keys.

It's even possible that Larry's ex-girlfriend was a racist white cop, and THAT'S why she called the other cops on him. The News-Gazette doesn't tell us she WASN'T, so that's one of the questions the article leaves unanswered.

http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/pub/press/shspljpr.htm

The first link said that, in 2002, there were about 47 suicides per 100,000 inmates in jails.

This one:

http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide_rates/en/index.html

points out that, in the US as a whole, the suicide rate among men is approximately 18 per 100,000. Considering that a lot of people in jail are looking at the possibility of an extended prison term, a two-and-a-half-times jump is hardly unexpected.

The latent racism that some of the trolls here exude is really nasty. They couldn't care less about the incarcerated, because, heck, they only die of suicide at a rate more than twice the average.

No, it's not unsurprising that jail inmates might have higher rates of suicidal ideation. What is rather shocking is that, in such a closely supervised setting and with this well-known fact to guide their planning and procedures, so many more inmates in Champaign County are allowed to carry through and act on their disturbed impulses. It should be relatively hard to kill your self in jail. Jail inmates are not supposed to have guns, knives, cars, liquor, drugs...

Oh, that's right, in a _well-managed_ jail, all that might be true. Champaign County does not have a well-managed jail. Instead, it's managed by those who share the same dismissive attitude as the trolls here. The Champaign County states' attorney is more interested in covering up the crimes and incompetence at the jail, than she is in getting to the bottom of things. She should be making certain that incompetence and disregard for basic human rights are dealt with expeditiously and strictly, so that jail personnel are on notice that they must live up to their duties and responsibilities -- or face the same consequences as the rest of us if we're fuckups on our job and hurt people.

Well, considering that the number was cut by two-thirds in the past twenty years, you might suppose they were doing something right.

And as far as "racism" goes:

"During the three-year period from 2000 through 2002, white jail inmates were six times more likely to commit suicide than black inmates and more than three times more likely than Hispanic inmates."

But, go ahead. Just keep calling everyone who disagrees with you a racist. It's so much easier than actually, like, having a thought or something.

Dumbass.

I take it that Dumbass is your name, since that is how you signed yourself off as.

Dumbass wrote:
"Well, considering that the number was cut by two-thirds in the past twenty years, you might suppose they were doing something right."

People do wonder why the Champaign County jail is such an exception to that trend.

Dumbass blunders on:
"And as far as "racism" goes:

"'During the three-year period from 2000 through 2002, white jail inmates were six times more likely to commit suicide than black inmates and more than three times more likely than Hispanic inmates.'"

Once again, Dumbass lives by the stats (because without a heart, maybe all you have left is a brain? sounds a little Oz-ish, but troll do seem to live in an alternate reality) and dies by the stats. Champaign County seems to defy the statistical "normality" of other places of incarceration. But normal is only relative when some incompetents at the jail let your son kill himself.

Dumbass blunders on:
"But, go ahead. Just keep calling everyone who disagrees with you a racist. It's so much easier than actually, like, having a thought or something."

I'm sure there are people who disagree with me on a variety of things and they're not racists. But it's pretty hard not to see what the general motivations are of those obsessed with attempting to silence the voices of African-Americans in our community. In fact, the statistically significant frequency of their commentary on al;most ANY other subject suggests that there's something about the news written here about African-Americans that really gets under the skin of trolls. I grew up in the Sixties and have lived to see the various permutations that racists have gone through as they vainly try to cling to social respectability they once had to give up the pointy hoods and even David Duke got too hot to pass off on the complacent majority. Even they know that being called on being a racist is not exactly a good career move, even if white privilege remains a powerful social force, protecting many of the neo-racists smart enough to keep their real feelings hidden until they surface on the internet e as the morally corrupt people they really are on the internet.

Anyone so obsessed with UC IMC coverage about African-American men, both on the street exercising their civil rights and as prisoners of the local legal system, so as to demonstrate through their repetitive and rather unimaginative trollage here definitely fits my definition of racist. It's obvious from your comments that anyone who is black, male, a prisoner, or suicidal is beneath your dignity to care about. That's _racism_.

"It should be relatively hard to kill your self in jail. Jail inmates are not supposed to have guns, knives, cars, liquor, drugs.."

Go on, Mikey. I defy you to find an example of someone smuggling a car into the Champaign County Jail. Or any other jail, for that matter.

Don't a lot of people in jail kill themselves by strangling themselves with an article of their own clothing? Maybe that's what we ought to do. Strip all jailbirds naked when they come in. Granted, that might be another gross violation of the civil rights of all the NONsuicidal people in jail, but nuts to that! We have to protect the five or six people who are determined to kill themselves from doing so. At all costs! Anything else is flat-out racism!

The only question will eventually be " How big a car?"

Since I can hear the echoing screeches of the same troll vulture kin this thread, I won't waste time calling you on your moral corruprtion. It's already clear you are very much a part of the problem here -- whether you're a jail guard, the sheriff, other local police, conservative citizen dio-gooder-by-screwing-people-who-don't-look-like-me, etc -- and not part of a solution.

Many programs for self-improvement suggests admitting to your self that you have a problem. Otherwise, you self-enabling behavior simply sucks you down and those around you suffer. This is especially dangerous, considering many of you are armed and have life-and-death repsonsibilities over many of our children, friends, neighbors. We don't want to see them hurt through your own self-deception, so we do have the possibility of an election cleaning house.

In the meantime, if you do get over your denial, there is plenty of professional help available:
http://suicideandmentalhealthassociationinternational.org/preventionprison.html
http://www.nicic.org/Library/012475
http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/en/60.pdf
http://www.johnhoward.ab.ca/PUB/C41.htm
http://www.ncianet.org/suicideprevention/index.asp
http://www.howardleague.org/index.php?id=suicideprevention
http://www.psycom.net/depression.central.suicide.html
http://jcx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/3/1/5
http://mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/publications/allpubs/SMA01-3517/references.asp
http://www.suicidereferencelibrary.com/test4~id~1440.php

The last citation might be one that even the head-in-the-sanders in Champaign County can get their mind around. The current incompetent status of training in suicide prevention locally is going to cost the taxpayers plenty. Even if you don't give a damn about those involved, as many of your comments seems to indicate, well then a rather large hunk out of the taxpayer's wallet is not going to make them happy about how those charged with carrying out these responsibilities have been doing. No wonder you're hoping for nothing more than friendly News-Gazette-style coverage of such incidents and its no wonder you've got you panties in a wad over anyone else who would dare to question the official story.

No, I don't think it is necessary to further violate the rights of prisoners to prevent suicide among prisoners. I realize that to those like you who have only one tool for dealing with people -- a hammer -- then every problem may look like a nail. If the stupidly of such thinking on your part does not immediately become self-evident, leading you to embrace more thoughtful approaches, then you really are in the wrong line of work. The public doesn't need you to protect it, they need to be protected from you.

its no wonder you've got you panties in a wad over anyone else who would dare to question the official story

Why do you get your panties in a wad when someone dares to question the unofficial story, or support the official story?

The level of the criticism asscoiated with BD's stories is surpringly limited, considering the obvious emotion involved in putting it forward so consistently, regularly, obsessively, even to the opoint that one academic I talked with about it indicated the whole thing showed marks of festishization; that's a little weird for me, but it does make you wonder if such people have time for normal relationships. Mostly, it amounts to a tempest in a teapot, with BD's critics insisting on his multifarious evils because they don't like the way he's said something.

The one thing they've never manage to do is refute his primary hypothesis, which is that the Champaign County justice system yields very different outcomes depending on the race and class of those involved.

Honest critics who want to see BD do better work -- and it has improved substantially in recent months, although I know that makes no difference to his dishonest critics -- have seen better work.

Somehow, the far more numerous ones who insists that BD has it all wrong -- when he clearly has better than 90% of it right -- are impassioned, persistent, shallow, and ultimately laughable, as they repeatedly find their underwear in disarray, blame BD for it, instead of their own twitching buttocks -- and then they run right back here to tell us all in no uncertain terms how verklempt BD makes them.

Pity you guys don't get out much. There's a big wide world beyond trolling Indymedia.