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LA CROSSE TRIBUNE
SERVING THE COULEE REGION SINCE 1904 50 CENTS
County to replace jail vents
Effort to stop hangings likely will cost $180,000
By BILL WHITE
Of the Tribune staff
La Crosse County supervisors Thursday approved spending up to $180,000 to replace air vents in the new jail, where an inmate hanged himself Dec. 10 and another tried to hang himself Tuesday night.
Both inmates suspended makeshift nooses from the vents in their cells.
Sheriff Karl Halverson said the expense of replacing the woven mesh vent covers with state-of-the-art covers that were not available when the jail was designed would be less than potential legal costs if families of inmates sued the county.
The current vent covers have narrow, horizontal bars across the mesh to prevent concealment of dangerous or potentially lethal objects or other contraband in the air ducts. The new vents feature tiny, angled holes in a I-inch solid metal face and are available only from a company called Safety Concepts Inc., he said.
Halverson estimated the cost of replacing the vents would be $40,000 for the lower level receiving area and $130,000 to $140,000 for the main jail on the upper two levels.
The maximum-security jail, which has a capacity of about 200 prisoners, opened in early September.
Atilla Hanson, 37, of Mormon Coulee Road, wove a bet sheet behind the vent bars, secured it in his Block C cell and then tied a noose in the other end of the sheet, which he put around his neck, before a jailer found him. Hanson was transferred to a medical cell and kept under observation.
On Dec. 10, James R. Williams, 33, of La Crosse tied his T-shirt and socks together as a noose and hanged himself from a ventilation grill in his isolation cell in the lower level of the jail.
The money for the vent covers is available in the remaining balance in the Law Enforcement Project Fund, supervisors were told. They waived a requirement to seek bids because Safety Concepts is the sole source for the vents and replacement should be made as soon as possible.
Hometown
La Crosse County prisoner hangs himself
Thursday, December 11, 1997
By BILL WHITE
Of the Tribune staff
A prisoner in the La Crosse County Jail killed himself Wednesday by tying his T-shirt and socks together and hanging himself from a ventilation grill in his isolation cell, Sheriff Karl Halverson said.
Halverson said the body of James R. Williams, 33 of La Crosse, was discovered by a jailer at 12:35 p.m. Williams was living at a halfway house on Harvey Street and was picked up there at 11:44 p.m. Tuesday because of a possible probation-parole violation, Deputy District Attorney Loralee Clark said.
A police report said a breath test showed he had a blood-alcohol content of 0.09 percent, defying a no-alcohol condition of his probation.
Williams pleaded guilty to two counts of battery in a 1994 case and was sentenced Aug. 4, 1995, to three years in prison, followed by three years probation. He was paroled in October, Clark said.
She said Williams had a lengthy criminal record dating back at least to 1983 and had served prison time in both Wisconsin and Illinois.
Halverson said Williams was booked into the jail at 12:45 am., was placed in a receiving cell on the lower level of the new county jail and spoke with a public defender between 8:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Williams was not under a watch, said Halverson, who was not sure when a jailer last checked the cell before finding the prisoner hanging from the vent.
"His T-shirt and some socks were tied together for length," Halverson said. "He had threaded it through a vent on the wall, either an intake vent or an exhaust vent."
The vents are one square foot and set into the wall above the toilet and about seven or eight feet from the floor.
Paramedics determined at the jail that Williams was dead.
Halverson said he turned the investigation into the death over to the La Crosse Police Department.
Scott Morris, a jail inspector with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections from Eau Claire, will conduct a jail-related death investigation today, Halverson said. Medical Examiner John Steers also has ordered an autopsy today.
The sheriff said Williams' death was the first such incident of its kind in the La Crosse County Jail in nearly 15 years.
The new jail, adjacent to the north side of the courthouse, opened in September with the receiving area on the lowest level and the 200- prisoner maximum-security facility on the upper levels.
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