HENRY REUTER

September 2, 2000

The Department of Correction has seen a summer of discontent. Inmates at the Indiana State Prison boycotted commissary goods because of their high prices. There and elsewhere, inmates objected to confiscatory phone bills their relatives pay for calls from prison. They complained of poor medical care. Most of the protests have been peaceful, but one convict paid with his life.

On Aug. 8, Henry Reuter, an inmate at the Michigan City facility, doused his clothing with a flammable liquid and set himself on fire. He died Aug. 18 at Wishard Memorial Hospital.

Reuter, 61, had been incarcerated since being convicted of armed robbery in 1982. The DOC claims that Reuter, who once held a prison nurse hostage, was prone to impulsive violence. Letters he wrote home to a relative in Indianapolis the day he burned himself suggest he could no longer bear prison conditions.

"I'm OK -- as OK as I'm gonna get, anyway," Reuter wrote his sister, Jackie Kern, in a letter dated Aug. 8. "I can't stand this cage any longer and all this (expletive) the DOC expects me, us, to exist under."

Reuter had gone to the prison's medical services unit to have his insulin checked when he abruptly told the staff members around him to stand back. Witnesses said he asked for God's forgiveness, pulled out a small butane lighter and ignited his clothing.

Driving some of the summer's discontent were commissary prices on such items as toothpaste, aspirin and snack food, charged under an Indiana Department of Correction contract with Keefe Commissary Network Sales of St. Louis, Mo.

Michigan City inmates were paying $1.20 for a 6-ounce can of tuna. The same product had been advertised locally at 39 cents. The prisoners had to spend more than $10 for a 24-can case of Coke that sold for $5 to $6 on the outside. During the boycott, inmates claimed that the service agreement with Keefe was a violation of anti-trust laws and the DOC's own written policy against making hefty profits from prisoners' commissary sales.

DOC spokeswoman Pam Pattison said Keefe officials met with prisoners in July to forge a compromise over prices.

High phone prices have also been an issue. A lawsuit questioning the legality of telephone contracts that allow jails and prisons to share profits with the phone company is pending in Marion Superior Court. The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission is also considering complaints by 10 prisoners about telephone charges.

Prisoners aren't expected to be happy. But when discontent is channeled into boycotts and suicides, the DOC should take their complaints more seriously.

This article was selected from TheTimesOnline, your information source for Northwest Indiana and South suburban Chicago. To visit the site, link to www.thetimesonline.com

TRACY DIETZEN

STATE PRISON INMATE DIES

MICHIGAN CITY -- Indiana State Prison officials have launched an investigation into the death of an inmate who was found unresponsive in his bed on Saturday.

A statement from Public Information Officer Barry Nothstine stated officers working in the "C" cellhouse at the prison noticed the offender, Tracy Dietzen, 39, had not appeared for breakfast. When an officer went to check on Dietzen, they found him unresponsive on the bed in his cell.

The officer immediately called medical emergency personnel, who performed cardiac pulmonary resuscitation until a prison doctor arrived and pronounced Dietzen dead. No marks were found on Dietzen's body and his cell was clean and orderly so no foul play is suspected, according to prison officials. An autopsy, however, has been requested because of Dietzen's age.

Dietzen was convicted in May 1998 of murdering his father. He was sentenced in Kosciusko County Circuit Court to 55 years in prison after being found guilty but mentally ill.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE

MARION COUNTY JAIL INMATE HANGS HIMSELF

INDIANAPOLIS STAR
June 12, 2007

An inmate at the Marion County Jail hanged himself today with a bedsheet, police said.

The 46-year-old inmate was held on attempted murder, aggravated battery, burglary and other charges, records show. The Star is withholding his identity because officials say his family has not yet been notified.

The man killed himself while his cellmate was at the chaplain’s office, according to the Marion County coroner’s office.

Jail officers found the man about 10 a.m., sheriff’s department spokesman Julio Fernandez said.

An autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday.

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department records show the suspect threatened suicide after he allegedly assaulted a man at a Westside home on March 27.

STEPHEN A. JOHNSON
CHARLES E. ROCHE JR

MICHIGAN CITY -- A SECOND INDIANA STATE PRISON INMATE COMMITTED SUICIDE THIS WEEK BY USING A BED SHEET TO KILL HIMSELF

Copyright 2005 IndyStar.com.
Star and news service report

Prison officials said they found Stephen A. Johnson, 49, about 7 a.m. Wednesday in his bed with the sheet around his neck.

Prison staff performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation and used a defibrillator in an attempt to revive him, but by the time LaPorte County emergency medical technicians arrived, his heart had stopped.

He was pronounced dead at 7:46 a.m.

Johnson was convicted of murder in Delaware County and was sentenced to 60 years for that crime and 10 years for burglary. His projected release date was Feb. 23, 2024. On Tuesday, Charles E. Roche Jr., 42, Hammond, was found dead in his cell hanging from a bed sheet braided into a rope and tied around his neck, the Indiana Department of Correction said.

Roche left a suicide note. "I'm tired of getting close to these guys in here and then watch them slowly crack as they near their fate," said the note released Tuesday by Roche's attorney. "That's worse (than) a death sentence."

THOMAS GOMEZ

INMATE'S DEATH CALLED APPARENT SUICIDE

Associated Press
September 22, 2005

VALPARAISO, Ind. -- The death of a Michigan City man in a Porter County Jail cell was an apparent suicide, the sheriff's department said.

Thomas Gomez, 19, was suffocated Wednesday by bedding material wrapped around his neck, sheriff's Sgt. Timothy Emmons said.

Gomez was housed alone in an isolation cell in the maximum security unit of the jail. A 4 p.m. check of the cell showed Gomez to be fine, but a jail officer serving dinner found Gomez in distress an hour later, Emmons said.

There was no indication Gomez was despondent before the incident Wednesday, Emmons said. Jail officers administered CPR and Gomez was taken to the hospital by ambulance where he was pronounced dead.

Gomez was arrested Aug. 14 in Burns Harbor and faced charges that included resisting arrest, false informing and reckless driving. He was placed in maximum security Sept. 15 after he reportedly was involved in an altercation with another inmate.

DAVID LEE SIMMONS

DOC: EX-ESCAPEE KILLED HIMSELF

Indianapolis Star
By Kevin O'Neal
February 15, 2005

One of four inmates who attacked two guards and escaped from the Hamilton County Juvenile Detention Center in 2001 has committed suicide, according to the Department of Correction and Indiana State Police.

David Lee Simmons, 20, was found to be unresponsive in his cell at the Pendleton Correctional Facility after lunch Monday, according to prison officials. State Police said he was pronounced dead at 11:48 a.m.

According to a statement from prison officials, the Madison County coroner ruled that Simmons committed suicide; the method of death was not mentioned. The Department of Correction and State Police said the investigation is continuing.

Simmons was serving a 94-year sentence for kidnapping, escape and battery. He was 17 years old when he and three other inmates escaped from the detention center on Nov. 19, 2001.

At Simmons' trial in July 2003, one inmate testified that Simmons was the leader of the breakout, while another inmate said Simmons kicked and beat a correctional officer.

One officer, Ann Davidson, 54, Anderson, sustained skull fractures, eye injuries, broken bones in her hand, cuts and the loss of some teeth. Another guard, Toby Warner, 26, Elwood, also was injured but less severely.

The three other inmates who escaped pleaded guilty to criminal charges.

Call Star reporter Kevin O'Neal at (317) 444-2760.

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