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Volusia County Jail Inmate Christopher Jodon. |
September 8, 2010 |
The first of this month (Sept 2010) another inmate apparently successfully committed suicide at the Volusia County jail. Inmate Jodon apparently was successful in hanging himself while on a mandatory 15 minute safety watch. Mr. Jodon was incarcerated within the Volusia County jail since his mid July 2010 arrest. He was the prime suspect and therefore arrested in the death of his ex girl friend, Jackie Miller. The details of his alleged crime can be reviewed in one of the below attached web links.
Click here - to read a media article detailing Mr. Jodon's alleged crime.
Mr. Jodon's recent death is still under investigation by the Volusia County Sheriff Department. Therefore, VolusiaExposed.Com has not requested any public records in regards to this alleged suicide. Once the VCSO investigation has been completed, we shall then request those records.
Based on the fact that we do not have the records, VolusiaExposed.com shall remain neutral on whether Mr. Jodon's death is a "questionable death".
However, with that said, VolusiaExposed.Com does has some serious concerns on whether the VCSO should be the investigative body in deaths that occur within the jail. We believe the possibility exist that the VCSO have failed to properly investigate other in-custody deaths at the Volusia jail. We further believe that such was possibly done for the purpose of serving an agenda to reduce both criminal and civil liability to the Volusia County Government.
We invite our readers to review the below web links and ask them to form their own conclusions. Pay particular attention to the Nelson, Comeau and Veria deaths
Click here - to read about the possible conflict of interest of having VCSO investigate jail deaths
Click here - to read links on other questionable deaths within the Volusia County jail
Click here - to read a media article detailing Mr. Jodon's alleged suicide
Since the deaths of Inmates Nelson, Comeau and Veira - and in apparent response to what appears to be falsification of reports by correctional officers, the county jail has purchased a new electronic tracking device that is suppose to verify whether the officers are actually making their security rounds.
Apparently each segregation cell now has a unique scan able code device attached to it. The officer is assigned a wand like device that must be swiped over the cell's device, in doing so a safety round to that cell is thereby confirmed. However, since rounds need to be made every 15 minutes on Unit 10 (the Unit that housed Inmate Jodon), it would be difficult to be able to stagger the rounds using this new electronic device. Staggering the rounds is an proven correctional officer technique used to keep the inmate population wondering when the officer would be returning.
Staggering rounds is a legitimate jail practice. If fact in the Jack Nelson 2006 death, Officer Coffin indicates in his report that he was staggering his rounds.(Please see the below copy of Ofc. Coffin's report) As stated before, the purpose of staggering the rounds is to keep the inmate population guessing when will the correctional officer return. Will the officer be back in 5, 10 or the entire 15 minutes? Does setting up a routine of returning every fifteen minutes assist the inmate in timing his / her suicide?
Click here - to read Ofc. Coffin's report about staggering rounds
It just seems to us that if you have inmates on mental health watches, that the guards next round should not be predictable. If such predictability exists, then the inmate(s) would know exactly when he / she could successfully hang themselves, right?
Once public records are available on this issue, it shall be interesting to see if the officers were routinely repeating their rounds every fifteen minutes, without staggering them.
This will also be the first death since the start of VolusiaExposed.Com. Volusia County officials are keenly aware that we will request and review the public records on this death. That we will look for the inconsistencies in the reports.
An example of one of these inconsistencies can be found in the Muriel Comeau death. Ofc. Bauer writes that she found Ms. Comeau at approximately 2215 hrs, but the law enforcement reports focus on a 2218 hrs discovery. Why? In Ofc. Bauer's report she notes that upon discovery, Medic Wismore left the cell block to obtain supplies. This fact appears to have been deleted from the law enforcement investigation. Why? Maybe both assist in reducing both criminal and civil liability to the Volusia County Government?
We will not know what transipired in the Jodon death until reports are released, but be prepared for a long investigation into this most recent death. We believe that all of the reports will be carefully reviewed to assured that no inconsistencies exist.
Exactly how will VCSO handle these inconsistencies - only time will tell - but the past has given us clear indications that officers can re-write their accounts of what transpired with little worry of either severe disciplinary action or the filing of criminal charges. A quick review of the other inmate death accounts seem to indicate that, does it not?
Click here - Questionable Deaths at the Volusia County Jail
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