Detectives have determined that the death of Jeffrey Willis, an inmate in a Broward County Jail, was not a suicide.
Had it been, it would have been the sixth for Broward's jail system since 2008 and a sharp increase considering there was only one suicide reported during the previous year. The Broward County Medical Examiner's Office will rule on the cause and manner of death.
The dramatic rise in jailhouse suicides has prompted criticism from activists.
"Five deaths in even a year's time for this size system is a very large number,'' the nation's leading jail suicide expert, Lindsay Hayes, told The Miami Herald earlier this month.
“Just on the face of it, it certainly is an alarming number.”
Adding to the complication was the fact that Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti announced that he was going to terminate 177 jailhouse workers, including 68 deputies, by the end of this month.
However, the layoffs were averted when about 2,000 workers agreed to take voluntary, unpaid furloughs.
But even though they averted the layoffs, the jails are still understaffed, leading to morale problems, according to one deputy who communicated with Bob Norman of the Broward-Palm Beach New Times.
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"[Sheriff] Al Lamberti's running the jail with skeleton crews," says the deputy.
"We don't have enough manpower. You have just one housing deputy, and when he leaves to take people down to court, the inmates are not being checked. All that's left is a control-room deputy who can't leave his post. We're supposed to have movement deputies to move the inmates to court, but they don't have enough manpower to do that."
The situation has gotten so dire that they are now seeking volunteers to help run the jail.
