Failure to Report: How did the D.C. Jail let two troubled inmates kill themselves in their cells? Don’t ask the D.C. Jail

By Brendan Smith, Washington City Paper

No one noticed when Thomas Alemayehu killed himself in Cell 43 of the D.C. Jail by twisting a torn piece of a bed sheet around his neck and tying it to the top bunk.

By the time someone checked on him, his body already was cold and stiffening; rigor mortis doesn’t occur until approximately two hours after death.

Alemayehu, a 28-year-old Ethiopian cab driver with a history of mental illness, died two days before Christmas in 2006, but he might have survived if corrections officers had done their job. Two corporals claim they completed mandatory inmate counts every 30 minutes, but surveillance cameras show no one had set foot on the cell block tier for more than two hours, according to a recently released internal-affairs investigation by the D.C. Department of Corrections.
Thomas Alemayehu

“There is a strong possibility that Mr. Alemayehu was hanging in a position between his bunk and toilet during the times that security checks and official counts were supposed to have been conducted,” the DOC report states.

During his initial health screening at the jail four days before his suicide, Alemayehu told medical staff he had tried to kill himself before, which should have triggered a mental-health assessment by a psychiatrist from jail medical-services contractor Unity Health Care.

However, Alemayehu never received the mental-health assessment, and he wasn’t placed on suicide watch. Instead, he was forgotten and died alone in a single cell. The internal-affairs investigation found that Unity Health Care’s policy for referring inmates for mental-health assessments was “considered nonexistent.”

Unity had never worked in a jail before winning a three-year contract in 2006 from the DOC, which didn’t seek any other bidders. Under the $83 million contract, Unity provides medical services for inmates and ongoing treatment for former inmates at its local network of community health clinics.

Three months after Alemayehu’s suicide, Alicia Edwards, 32, also hanged herself with a bed sheet in a single cell. During her health screening two days earlier, she told Unity medical staff she had attempted suicide before. She said she needed a prescribed psychotropic medication for bipolar disorder to stop the dangerous swings from major depression to mania that haunted her mind.

Like Alemayehu, Edwards never received a mental-health assessment, and she wasn’t placed on suicide watch. She also didn’t get the medication that could have prevented a relapse of her mental illness.

On March 31, 2007, after cutting her body down from the makeshift noose, corrections officers found a piece of paper lying near Edwards’ body. It was a medical request form. Edwards was asking again for the medication she needed, the internal-affairs report states.
D.C. Jail’s Central Detention Facility (Darrow Montgomery)

Alemayehu and Edwards weren’t hardened criminals. They faced relatively minor charges when they killed themselves. Their suicides exposed major problems with the diagnosis, treatment, and supervision of mentally ill inmates in the D.C. Jail, which holds, on average, more than 3,200 inmates per day.

The Department of Corrections, headed by Director Devon Brown, fought for 10 months to prevent the release of its internal-affairs reports on the suicides. The reports were recently released after several appeals to Mayor Adrian Fenty’s office through the D.C. Freedom of Information Act.

Brown has good reason to want to keep the reports secret. The investigations reveal widespread misconduct by corrections officers and medical staff from Unity Health Care that directly contributed to the deaths of Edwards and Alemayehu. Fenty’s office allowed the redactions of the names of all of the employees from the reports, although some names slipped past the black pens of the censors… Continued on next page >>

Inter Press Service News Agency

The Death Sentence Was Used As a Tool of Intimidation

Interview with Leonard Vincent, head of the RSF’s Africa desk.

CAPE TOWN (IPS) – Journalism in Ethiopia has become an increasingly hazardous trade over recent years. A clampdown on the media in the wake of disputed elections in 2005 continues to resonate in the country, while certain members of the press have even found themselves facing capital punishment.

In July 2007, journalists Andualem Ayele Legesse, Mesfin Tesfaye Gobena, Wonakseged Zeleke Tessema and Dawit Fasil Woldeselassie were sentenced to death on charges that included treason — this in connection with the unrest that followed the 2005 polls.

While the four were later amnestied, their sentences are viewed as having had a somewhat chilling effect on press freedom in Ethiopia. To find out more, IPS correspondent Miriam Mannak spoke to Leonard Vincent, head of the Africa desk at Reporters sans frontières (Reporters Without Borders, RSF). This Paris-based advocacy group helped negotiate the release of the four condemned writers.

IPS: The decision to issue death sentences against the journalists must have come as a shock to RSF…

Leonard Vincent (LV): On the one hand it was, as it is a very serious matter. On the other hand, we never thought that the Ethiopian government would go ahead with it and shoot the journalists. The death sentence was used as a tool of intimidation, a way to put journalists in their place and to make sure they understand the consequences of defying the authorities.

Despite the fact we were aware of this and knew the government was overreacting, we treated the situation with the greatest urgency…

IPS: What effect has this event had on the media in Ethiopia?

LV: It has had a great impact. Self-censorship is a way of life for Ethiopian journalists, especially for those living and working in Addis Ababa (the capital). Any form of criticism and any attack against the president or the government may lead to telephonic threats, intimidation or even arrest and (a) jail sentence…

Nevertheless, two of the journalists involved have again started independent newspapers in Addis Ababa. This was a couple of months ago. Of course, both editors are under strict surveillance and it has been very difficult to obtain a license, but they are managing.

IPS: Are journalists in Ethiopia afraid of the death penalty?

LV: No real fear exists among media people when it comes to the death penalty. These were exceptional circumstances that lead to the events in 2005, and everyone understands that. That includes RSF.

There is… a greater fear of being imprisoned. Prisons in Ethiopia have a very bad reputation: we are talking about cells with 120 people and only one latrine, as well as restricted visiting rights.

IPS: Have there been recent cases of journalists elsewhere in Africa receiving death sentences?

LV: Not that I know of. Maybe some artists have been sentenced to death, but not journalists — at least not in the past 10 years.

There have been cases of life imprisonment. Moussa Kaka, a journalist from Niger, was arrested in September last year on a charge of complicity in an attack on state authority. He is being accused of being in contact with the rebels who are fighting in the north of the country. Moussa faces a life sentence, but has not been tried yet. In the same event, two French journalists were arrested and threatened with the death penalty. They were released in January this year.

IPS: In general, is it difficult for journalists in Africa to write about the death penalty?

LV: Yes, commenting on judicial decisions is tricky in many countries. In some nations journalists are not even allowed to comment on the justice system. Last month in Niger, the editor of the independent publication ‘L’Eveil Plus’, Aboubacar Gourouza, was sentenced to one month in jail for an article in which he compared the provisional release of the mayor of the city of Maradi with a decision to keep the mayor of Niamey (the capital) in prison. Both mayors had been accused of fraud.

IPS: What type of difficulties does your organisation encounter when trying to highlight these problems?

LV: In some countries, the authorities are quite prejudiced and sceptical towards us. In Rwanda, for instance, they suspect that RSF is funded by the French government. Others think we are paid by the American intelligence services. That is obviously not true…We try to open the debate with the authorities and talk to them about freedom of the press. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

(AME Info) — Ethiopian Airlines, the fastest growing African carrier, has announced its plan to launch flight services to Kuwait and Riyadh starting June 2. The flights will operate Addis Ababa-Riyadh-Kuwait-Addis Ababa twice weekly on Mondays and Thursdays with the return flights on Tuesdays and Fridays. Ethiopian currently operates 35 flights weekly to six destinations in the Middle East: Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Beirut, Dubai, Jeddah and Sana’a.