A SON'S SUICIDE, A MOM'S CRUSADE

After Her Son Hanged Himself in a Police Holding Cell, a Mother Gets
Mandatory Suicide Screenings Implemented.

TEMPLE TERRACE - Donald Rubin killed himself in plain sight, on
camera, with police a few paces away. A security camera caught him
stripping the laces out of his shoes. It videotaped him wrapping them
around his neck.

But no one saw the video footage live.

Thirty-six minutes after he collapsed to the ground from hanging, an
officer discovered his body pressed up against the bars of a Temple
Terrace Police Department holding cell. Officers tried to revive him,
but it was too late.

No one in the Police Department expected that the seemingly calm 39-
year-old detainee would kill himself.

Now, more than three years after Rubin's Feb. 20, 2003 death, the
Temple Terrace Police Department has agreed in a lawsuit settlement to
meet Rubin's mother's demands.

Foremost among them: instituting a mandatory suicide screening for
anyone entering a holding cell.

"It's a few extra questions in the booking process," said Seth Nelson,
attorney for Elizabeth Rubin, 70. "It's not expensive."

Still, the agreement appears to be unprecedented in the Tampa Bay
area.

While large jails like the Pinellas County Jail and Orient Road Jail
in Hillsborough County include a suicide screening as part of their
regular booking procedures, a Times survey of area agencies reveals it
is far less common for smaller municipal police departments to perform
a formal check for suicidal tendencies before placing inmates in
holding cells.

Holding cells are typically used as an in-between place for inmates.
It's where they go when they are awaiting some process such as
booking, interrogation or a court appearance. Prisoners are not
supposed to be kept in a holding cell more than eight hours, according
to Florida Model Jail Standards.

Many small police agencies try to use them as infrequently as
possible, for one simple reason.

"It's safer for everyone," said Capt. Sanfield Forseth of the Pinellas
Park Police Department. Forseth estimates Pinellas Park uses the
holding cells once a month, if that, and prefers to transport inmates
directly to the county jail run by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.

But Col. David Parrish, who oversees Hillsborough County jails, says
police departments need to get out of the business of using holding
cells altogether.

The Temple Terrace incident may illustrate why.

Less than three hours before Rubin died, an officer discovered him and
a longtime female friend parked in a 1998 Ford Econoline van at a park
near Riverhills Elementary School. It was after 3 a.m. and parking
there was against city ordinance. So, Officer Jacob Carlisle stopped.

Rubin told police he was showing Angelia Verran his childhood stomping
grounds. He'd attended the elementary school and grew up in nearby
Lamont Place, he said.

But Rubin - who had been out with Verran shooting pool, downing shots
and singing karaoke before coming to the park - smelled of alcohol
and, police said, he had white powder on his nose.

Elizabeth Rubin wishes that morning ended simply with her son's arrest
for cocaine possession.

Donnie, the youngest of three boys, had had his troubles. He never
really settled into a career, but supported himself working now in
restaurants, now in construction.

Sometime in his 20s, she thinks, he started hanging with people who
dabbled in drugs. He had been arrested and charged with driving under
the influence in 1998.

Elizabeth Rubin urged him to take care of himself, to avoid drugs. She
knew his weaknesses. But she always believed he had goodness in him.

He cooked for her. He played golf with her. He sang terribly, but she
misses hearing him play his guitar and sing his sad songs. He was
sensitive, but also a jokester known for his bear hugs. It's hard to
find a photo of him where he's keeping a straight face.

"He was just - he was a normal guy to most people, but he was my
baby," Elizabeth Rubin said.

At 11 a.m. Feb. 20, 2003, Elizabeth Rubin learned her baby died alone
in a holding cell with a shoelace around his neck. The Temple Terrace
police lieutenant who came to the door to help deliver the news had
attended King High School with Donald. She knew him and liked him.
She'd always had a good relationship with the Police Department, even
getting formal recognition from the agency for her participation in
events aimed at preventing crime.

Yet, she didn't believe her ears. She wanted a lawyer. She had one
burning thought.

"That they killed him," she said.

Jail suicide looms large on the corrections community radar. No one
wants a dead inmate on their hands, partly because of the liability.

"There are lots and lots of suicides (in the world) every day," said
Parrish, who oversees jails for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's
Office. "However, once someone is in our custody, oh my gosh, the
standards suddenly change. People are lining up to file lawsuits
claiming negligence was committed."

Nationally, the 2003 suicide rate in local jails was 47 per 100,000
inmates - more than three times that in state prisons, according to
the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

And yet small agencies such as Temple Terrace have traditionally done
little to raise internal awareness about the hazards of leaving
someone alone in a cell.

In the Temple Terrace wrongful death case Elizabeth Rubin filed last
year, she said the department failed to safely detain and care for her
son, thereby violating his constitutional rights.

Officers failed to remove his shoelaces before locking him in the
cell. They failed to effectively monitor the video surveillance
pointed at him. And, Elizabeth Rubin holds, they failed to recognize
warning signs that her son was a suicide risk.

Temple Terrace Deputy Chief Patricia Powers admits officers did not
receive any verbal indication that Donald Rubin was suicidal. But she
also says that in her 25 years with the agency, the 39-year-old's
suicide was a first.

Before that, it was not standard procedure to remove the suspect's
belt or shoes. While the cells were monitored via a camera hoisted in
one corner of the two-cell room, the resulting video was small and
obscure. The person charged with watching it had other duties as well
and was never required to observe the screen every moment.

Though officers were trained to look for signs of mental instability
because the person can be detained for his or her own safety under the
Baker Act, they did not get a lot of training on less obvious signs of
potential suicide.

Margaret Severson, an associate professor at the University of Kansas
who has studied and worked in prisons for more than 20 years, said the
main reason police tend to shy away from incorporating suicide
screenings in their booking procedures is "our own discomfort in
asking about suicide - because then you have to do something about
it."

Even now that Temple Terrace has strengthened its holding cell
procedures with special attention to suicide risk, the agency does not
have any specific plans to provide formal training sessions for the
staff, Powers said.

The agency is instead trying to transport suspects directly to county
jail more often. Powers estimated that the number of people placed in
holding cells has declined by 20 to 30 percent since the 2003 suicide.

"We are not a detention facility," Powers said. "Just holding cells.
We are not corrections."

That's exactly why Parrish thinks local police agencies should do away
with holding cells altogether. Small agencies simply don't have the
means or staff to adequately run jails inside their departments, he
said.

"You can't lock people up in rooms and leave them unattended," he
said. Running a jail means complying with a host of federal
regulations - rules that the county jails are far more prepared to
institute.

Parrish recommends police departments use secure interview rooms to
house people in custody before bringing them to county jail.

But a survey of 13 municipal police departments in Hillsborough,
Pinellas, Pasco, Hernando and Citrus found that nine use holding
cells. The Port Richey Police Department doesn't have one, but it
plans to build two in west Pasco County in the next few months, Chief
Bill Sager said.

"It's more of a convenience," said Lt. Scott Baker of the New Port
Richey Police Department, which has six holding cells that it uses for
most arrests. In stings that involve multiple arrests, for example,
holding cells provide more room for officers to process sometimes
lengthy paperwork. A cell can also be a more comfortable place for the
detainee than the back of a hot patrol car.

Of those that use holding facilities, Tampa police appear to be most
in line with Parrish's recommendation. Each of the three districts has
a secured interview room where the detainee sits in a cage in the same
room with the arresting officer.

Cpl. Larry McKinnon said the agency rarely uses the rooms. Unlike most
of the agencies surveyed, the Tampa facilities do not include a
toilet. And while there is video monitoring of the area, officers are
bound by policy not to leave the suspect without direct
supervision.

In Brooksville, Chief Ed Tincher said the agency has never used cells
for the exact reasons Parrish raised: "We decided a long time ago, it
wasn't worth it," Tincher said.

In Temple Terrace the new suicide screening policy became official on
Wednesday - too late for Elizabeth Rubin's purposes. Three years after
Donnie's death, the wounds are still fresh enough that she can't keep
from crying when she talks about him.

As a result of the lawsuit settlement, Rubin, who works in concessions
at the St. Pete Times Forum, received $30,000. But she says what she
really wanted was to see other mothers spared the news she received
that February morning. Knowing the department is changing brings her
hope. But, to her, the new measures just seem like common sense.

"It will never heal the wound," she said.

Deputy Chief Powers said the experience also had an impact on the
officers who handled the incident. They are sorry, she said. They
don't want this to happen again.

Nelson, the attorney for Elizabeth Rubin, said it's the best remedy
that can come of the situation: "At the end of the day, it's going to
save lives. His death is going to save lives."