The removal of a potential safety hazard that could have saved an inmate’s life was halted due to the anticipated closure of the Sarnia Jail, a jury heard Thursday at the ongoing inquest into the hanging deaths of two inmates. Sarnia Jail superintendent Kim Wright told jurors she believed the elimination of possible anchor points for nooses on bed frames was stopped after the closure of the jail was announced. In April, inmate Daniel Mitchell was found with a shred of bed sheet around his neck and tied through a bed frame hole. In 2011, Darcy Rice, the second victim in the ongoing inquest, was discovered with a shred of bed sheet around his neck and tied to a horizontal bar of the cell door. However, jurors at an eerily similar inquest into another hanging death back in 2009 had already recommended holes in jail bed frames and horizontal bars on cell doors be eliminated. A weekend inmate, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he wasn’t surprised to hear the jury’s recommendations weren’t followed through on back in 2009. “I’m more aggravated that they aren’t keeping an eye on the inmates,” he said. “They come around every once in a while. There’s times in there that they don’t come around for a good hour.” He believes the solution to preventing jail suicides is simply to increase the patrols of the cells. In the last six years, three of the 17 suicides at Ontario’s 29 jails have happened in […]

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