PITTSBURGH,None — A federal Bureau of Justice Statistics study found that among the nation's 50 largest jails, the Allegheny County Jail had the second highest suicide rate from 2000 to 2007, averaging 1 2/3 suicides a year.
The jail reported two suicides in 2009 and one in 2010, according to the state Department of Corrections. That gave the jail the highest suicide rate for those years among county lockups in Pennsylvania with populations of more than 1,000.
"We've tried to do some things to prevent suicides," Bruce Dixon, director of the Allegheny County Health Department and chairman of Allegheny Correctional Health Services, which handles jail medical care, said.
The parents of one inmate are suing the jail.
The civil trial stemming from Jason Kindler's 2008 suicide in the jail is set to start Nov. 7. Kindler, of Springdale, was 28 years old when he was jailed for marijuana possession.
A father of two and a repeat drug offender, he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder by a jail psychiatrist during a 2007 incarceration, according to a statement filed last month by Kindlers' attorneys, William F. Goodrich and Steven M. Barth. He told nurses at intake that he was withdrawing from Percocet and suffering from an ulcer, and had tried suicide before.
Initially, he had a cellmate, but after a few days he was housed alone. He was found on Jan. 28, 2008, hanged by a bedsheet from a steel hook attached to a steel bracket to the cell wall by four steel bolts, said the statement.
The county also faces ongoing lawsuits for two other jail suicides, John Simeone III, 36, in 2007, and Shiva Lal Acharya, 33, in 2008.
• Email Newsletter: Get The Latest News Sent To Your Email! • Mobile: Get WPXI Headlines On Your Phone, iPhone, More • RSS: Add Us To Your Page!
WPXI
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/XCUXZC2XYZHCRGNNGKFEX6U3LQ.png)
