Tyrell Dominique Taylor's Suicide prompts review of jails

Suicide prompts review of jails
Arundel officials examine methods to screen inmates
By Justin Fenton | Sun Reporter
July 29, 2008
Jail officials in Anne Arundel County said yesterday that they are reviewing how facilities screen inmates' mental health after a Towson man apparently killed himself in his cell over the weekend, the county's fourth inmate death this year.

Tyrell Dominique Taylor, 31, was found Saturday morning hanging from bedsheets affixed to a bunk bed. Taylor had been arrested two days earlier on robbery charges and was being held at the Jennifer Road detention centeron $1 million bail.

Before this year, the county jail system had not recorded an inmate suicide since 2003, said Robin Harting, superintendent of Anne Arundel's two detention facilities. But Taylor is the second inmate in seven months to kill himself and the fourth to die while in custody this year.

Harting said she believed the department's policies for screening inmates are sound, but that it is routine to conduct a review after an inmate's death.

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