Hunger strike landed suicidal inmate in solitary
Psychiatrist rated risk low to moderate, but a later comment was a ‘red flag’
On suicide watch at the Ottawa jail, Cleve Geddes spent more than 20 hours a day alone in his chilly segregation cell, wearing only a coarse canvas gown nicknamed a “baby doll” and sleeping with a thick, ripproof security blanket on a slightly thicker security mattress.
The only books allowed were a Bible or a Qur’an since the jail considered other reading material a potential means of suicide. His meetings with the prison psychologist took place through the kneehigh slot in his steel cell door that was meant to pass his meal trays through.
Under cross examination, jail psychologist Justine Joseph agreed it was “not a very therapeutic environment for an assessment.”
Joseph was testifying on the fourth day of a coroner’s inquest into the Feb. 10, 2017, death of Geddes, a 30-year-old Killaloe man with paranoid schizophrenia. The inquest, under presiding coroner Dr. Thomas Wilson, is examining the circumstances of Geddes’s arrest, why he was sent to the Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre instead of a hospital for a psychiatric assessment as a judge had ordered, and how he managed to hang himself in jail after being taken off suicide watch.
Geddes was arrested Jan. 30, 2017, in Killaloe when OPP officers were investigating a complaint by his father that Geddes had threatened him.
The confrontation went badly and Geddes was charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. He was already facing charges of uttering threats and causing a disturbance in an incident that occurred the month before at the Pembroke public library. Despite the charges, family and friends have told the inquest that Geddes had never been physically violent.
Joseph saw Geddes three times at the jail, the first coming on the day after he arrived behind bars because there wasn’t an available hospital bed. She said Geddes was anxious and emotionally flat, and fixated on being admitted to the Royal Ottawa Hospital. “That was a constant theme for Mr. Geddes. He was preoccupied with going to the hospital,” she testified.
Geddes had no history of violence and told staff he had never attempted suicide, but he did rate his suicide risk as eight out of 10 when he arrived. A few days later, Joseph said he seemed calmer and was again taking his medication. By then, Geddes rated his own suicide risk as “zero.”
Joseph found Geddes to be at low to moderate risk of killing himself, and recommended he be moved out of the segregation pod and into the less restrictive dormitory, where he would be around other inmates. He had complained of constantly being cold on the segregation ward, even when his suicide watch had been eased and he’d been given back regular clothes. He also complained of being lonely.
That was on a Friday afternoon. Joseph said she came back to work Monday morning and was surprised to learn Geddes had been placed in high-security B Pod, where he was again confined to his cell for 19.5 hours a day.
No witnesses have been able to tell the five-person jury why Joseph’s dorm recommendation was ignored, but by that Monday, after a week in jail, Geddes had begun acting up and threatening to go on a hunger strike. He’d also been told he would have to wait at least another week to go to hospital. When Joseph saw him that day, she asked if he felt like hurting or killing himself. He said no. But when she asked if he’d been thinking about suicide, he said yes.
“Is that not some kind of red flag or alarm bell for you?” coroner’s counsel Tom Schneider asked.
“Yes,” Joseph replied, adding that Geddes thought his disruptive behaviour might get him sent to the hospital faster.
Two days later, it did. On Feb. 8, correctional officers found him unresponsive in his cell, hanging by a bedsheet. He died two days later at the Civic Campus of The Ottawa Hospital, having never been seen at The Royal.
The inquest resumes on Monday, Dec. 10.
That was a constant theme for Mr. Geddes. He was preoccupied with going to the hospital.