But incidents still happen, especially when the inmates are not honest, they said.
“We take it very seriously, and you never want to lose a life,” said Butler County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer. “The officers are corrections officers, and they have a thick skin, but once somebody goes down in their pod, they are doing everything they can to save them,”
Travis Goad, 33, died from an apparent suicide at the Butler County Jail about 1 a.m. on Jan. 31. Goad was charged with two felonies after allegedly walking into the West Chester Police Department on Jan. 29 and telling officers he put a bomb at a business, which turned out to be false. A large contingent of police and county bomb squad unit responded to investigate.
After talking to Goad for several hours, police took him to the jail. Dwyer said he was placed in a cell block for inmates with special needs. Goad was in a cell alone with the door open. He was found kneeling and leaning into a devise fashioned for hanging.
“He wasn’t here long. It is my understanding he made no indication he was suicidal,” Dwyer said.
It’s not because he wasn’t asked, officials said.
“When (inmates) are brought in, before booking one of the questions asked is do they have any suicidal ideations, and based on the response we will take whatever action necessary. The difficult part is a lot of people in jail either exacerbate or limit their problems,” Dwyer said. “Are they being honest at that point? But if someone indicates they are suicidal we have protocol we follow.”
That includes suicide prevention cells with glass doors, special beds and a suicide-proof gown.
“It’s a very thick material that can’t be folded to make any type of ligature,” Dwyer said.
Dwyer said it is much more difficult for an inmate to commit suicide while on suicide watch.
“So people may be less than truthful about their intentions with jail staff,” he said. “We have had people screened and cleared then go and commit suicide. We have had people manipulate to get in to a position where they could.”
The last suicide in Middletown City Jail was in 2018. That man also made no indication he wanted to harm himself, according to officials.
In March 2018, the 33-year-old Hamilton man was booked into the jail on a bench warrant, said Maj. Leanne Hood from the Middletown Division of Police. He gave no indication he was considering taking his life. He went to court for a hearing and ate his lunch, and an hour later took bed sheet and hanged himself while his cellmate was in court.
“Sometimes you don’t know,” Hood said. “Seems like the people who are more set on killing themselves give you no indication that they want to do that.”
Like at the Butler County Jail, all inmates are evaluated about their mental state and those with suicidal thoughts are placed in cells in the front of the jail and watched closely. They also are given items that cannot be used to make a noose.
Hood said corrections officers are trained to watch for signs or actions and the other inmates also watch out and will “start yelling” if the see someone try to harm themselves.
“But people are not honest or use it as what they think is a way to get out of jail,” she said. “It has to do with what is going on inside their head. Things that happen to them can influence that, but we meet people who seem to have lost everything — their job, their wife, they are going to prison for a long time, and you ask them and they look at you like, ‘Well no, I don’t want to kill myself.’”
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