Jennings hanging attempt is latest in series of area jail incidents
By Margaret Gillerman
mgillerman@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8126 and Joel Currier
jcurrier@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8256
Oct 6, 2014 11:00 PM
JENNINGS • A 26-year-old man was in critical condition Monday after trying to hang himself over the weekend in the Jennings city jail, police said.
Dejuan Brison, of the 5800 block of Page Boulevard in St. Louis, was arrested by St. Louis police Oct. 1 on a “domestic-related charge,” officials said. He was transferred to the Jennings lockup on Saturday, on a warrant for failing to appear in court in a shoplifting case.
County police are investigating Brison’s suicide attempt. They provide policing for Jennings, but Sgt. Brian Schellman said they do not run the jail. He said detectives seized a surveillance video.
In Jennings, Brison complained that he was about to have an asthma attack, and paramedics from Christian Hospital Northeast and the Northwest Fire Protection District responded, Schellman said. Paramedics said he was healthy and fit for confinement. He was placed in the jail about 12:40 p.m. Saturday.
Schellman said that about 40 minutes later, a Jennings jail officer checking on Brison saw that he had tried to hang himself using bed linens tied around the cell’s bars. The officer attempted to revive Brison, who was unconscious. Paramedics took him to a hospital, where he was in critical condition, officials said.
The family’s attorney, Jerryl Christmas, said Brison had been in good mental health but the incident is under investigation, so he’s open to all possibilities. “He had been confined before, so there was no need to panic,” he said. “As far as I know there was no documentation he had been under suicide watch.”
Christmas says that if even Brison did attempt to kill himself, he should have been better supervised and the jail was negligent in that aspect. “I think this is really an example of how we need a serious evaluation of the municipal court system we have here,” he said, pointing out other recent municipal jail suicides and suicide attempts. “The municipalities are not equipped to supervise these people properly.”
It was at least the second such incident at the Jennings jail this year. Charles Anthony Chatman Jr., 24, of Jennings, who was being held on traffic warrants, hanged himself March 21.
Saturday’s incident comes about two weeks after Kimberlee Randle-King, 21, of Maryland Heights, hanged herself with a T-shirt Sept. 19 in a Pagedale jail cell. She died at a hospital. Randle-King was held on warrants from Pagedale related to a disturbance involving another woman.
On Sept. 24, Jenny Newman, 37, of Webster Groves, was found unconscious at the Des Peres police holding cell, about an hour after her arrest on traffic warrants from Moscow Mills and Woodson Terrace. She died in a hospital three days later. Authorities have not released her cause of death.
Relatives of Bernard Scott, 44, of University City, say they were told Scott was found with a shoestring around his neck in a Pine Lawn holding cell on Sept. 27. He was taken to a hospital and is now recovering at a rehabilitation center, said Scott’s sister, Quameca Scott, 42, of Jennings. She said her brother was held at the time on traffic warrants.
Pine Lawn officials said that incident is under investigation but have provided no other details.
Quameca Scott said she suspects her brother was attacked in the cell and questions how an inmate could have access to shoestrings. She said her brother doesn’t remember anything about what happened. “I would bet my life that this was not a suicide attempt,” she said. “We just need answers.”
