Garner Inmate Makes Apparent Suicide Attempt

By Andrew Gorosko

While making routine checks of inmate cells at the high-security Garner Correctional Institution midafternoon on February 24, a correction officer noticed that a 25-year-old inmate was lying face down on his bunk with a noose around his neck.

The correction officer then checked and found that the unidentified inmate had a pulse, after which he called Garner medical staffers to the cell, said state Department of Correction (DOC) spokeswoman Stacy Smith.

The medical staff then treated the inmate, after which they called the Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps to the prison at 50 Nunnawauk Road at about 3:40 pm.

Ms Smith did not provide information about the construction of the noose around the inmate’s neck. The inmate was the only person in the cell at the time that he was found by the correction officer, she said.

Ambulance corps staffers transported the inmate to Danbury Hospital to be checked, Ms Smith said. The inmate was returned to the prison at 7 pm that day, she said. It is unclear whether the man was injured in the incident.

The incident is under investigation by the DOC’s internal security staff, Ms Smith said. No criminal charges are expected, she said.

State police at Troop A in Southbury said they were not called to the prison to investigate the incident.

Ms Smith declined to say whether the inmate is one of the psychiatric prisoners who are held at Garner by the DOC. A large majority of the inmates housed at Garner have serious mental disorders.

Garner, which opened in November 1992, held 567 male inmates on March 1. During the past year, the prison has become the state’s prime facility for holding inmates with serious psychiatric disorders.