Prison Inmate Commits Suicide Using Face Mask in Connecticut Jail

An inmate from Connecticut committed suicide by using a face mask to hang himself in jail. The authorities later on discovered the prisoner dead in his cell.

Officials in the Department of Correction ordered masks as standard operating procedure for all prisons to avoid outbreaks, according to CNN. Authorities confirmed that he committed suicide using a cloth mask and not a disposal mask.

Based on the autopsy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the convict's death was caused by suicide and no foul play was suspected.

The identified inmate, Daniel Ocasio, 32, was discovered a bit after 5 a.m. on Wednesday in the Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Center in Montville, Connecticut. A was ligature was fastened around the victim's neck. These details were released by Andrius Banevicius of the DOC who sent the statement to the press.

According to the Department of Corrections, the ligature used by the inmate to take his life was made from a cloth mask issued by the prison administration to all the convicts. As the coronavirus is going unchecked in the U.S., prison officials are keen in preventing an outbreak in jails.

Despite the result of suicide and no suspicioun of foul play, the DOC is still investigating the circumstances of his death. Those specifically investigating will be DOC's security division and the Connecticut State Police, said Banevicius.

Records indicate that Daniel Ocasio, from Windsor, was incarcerated in the penitentiary at the Uncasville area of Montville from August 5. Charges against him is burglary in the third degree, said the DOC. A bond of $10,000 is set for his case.

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Inmates can spread the COVID-19 rapidly in the prison without proper precautions. Ocasio's case only punctuates the severity of the pandemic which affects all prisoners.

This was further supported in a study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published in July. They pointed out the vulnerability of catching the bug in penal centers, giving most of the convicts a 5.5 more chance of acquiring the contagious disease than those not in jail.

Estimates were projected at an infection propagation of 3,251, in every 100,000 prisoner population. Compared that to the 587 infected from 100,000 people non-criminals.

More data revealed that convicts were more likely to die from the virus, as high as three times more compared to non-convicts with leeway for age and gender in the data collected.

According to the analysis, it was about 39 fatalities in 100,000 convicts, in contrast to the 29 dead in 100,000 of the non-convicts which is significant.

Conversely, the Department of Corrections is alarmed at the detected number of positive prisoners. There are 1,300 convicts in Connecticut prisons, and seven have died from the virus.

Ocasio's death drew fire from the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut (ACLU) that asked the DOC to investigate the death. Banevicius said the investigation is getting conducted to determine more details surrounding the incident.