By Azam Ahmed
The Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — When police arrived at his mother’s house at 3 a.m. Thursday, Victor Flores fled to the roof of a neighbor’s garage. As officers surrounded the area, he threatened to jump and commit suicide, his family said.
A few hours later, he carried out the threat, hanging himself in a lockup at the Harrison District police station with a drawstring from his shorts, his family said they were told by police.
Flores’ family said they had warned Chicago police that he was a danger to himself and needed to be monitored.
“As soon as they were trying to arrest him, I told the officer that he has bipolar disorder and that he’s suicidal and that this isn’t the first time he tried to kill himself,” said his mother, Janell Salgado. “I told them to watch him.”
Flores, 20, was found unconscious in his cell at about 7 a.m. Thursday during an hourly check, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said. Police called his death an “apparent suicide.” He shared the cell with another inmate.
“There’s nothing in the [police] report to indicate that he was suicidal,” Bond said, “but that’s not to say the matter won’t be investigated thoroughly.” The department’s Office of Professional Standards will look into the death, she said.
But his family contended that Flores should have been more carefully monitored and stripped of any articles that could be used in a suicide attempt, especially when the police were aware he was suicidal.
“All we got from the police was that he committed suicide, and I can’t understand,” said his aunt, Anjanette Slanagan. “I thought they take all that stuff — shoelaces, belts — when you go in, but somehow he hung himself in his cell.”
The family, distraught that their warnings were not heeded by police, have consulted a lawyer. “That combination of a new prisoner not being watched closely and being allowed to possess [an object] that they could kill themselves with is unreasonable,” said Roger Rudich, the attorney looking into the death for the family.
Police had come to the family’s house in Cicero to arrest Flores on a warrant for aggravated battery, Bond said. Flores was on probation for a felony conviction for unlawful use of a firearm, she said.
His mother acknowledged that Victor had a troubled past but said he was living at home and trying to turn his life around. He was the father of a newborn baby girl, she said.
But Flores had a history of suicide attempts, the most recent two months ago when he was briefly hospitalized, his mother said. And when police arrived Thursday morning, he lost control, she said.
Flores jumped from a second-story window at their home, ran across the street and jumped atop a neighbor’s garage, the family said.
The police finally coaxed him down and allowed Flores to say goodbye to his family before he was placed in a squad car and taken to district headquarters, the family said. His mother said she was told there was no point in her going to the station.
Later that morning, police officers came back to tell her Flores had committed suicide.
Now, as she makes preparations for the funeral, she’s left with questions: “They had ambulances here and the Fire Department was here to watch him, why didn’t they take him to the hospital? How did he hang himself in their custody?” the mother said.
Copyright 2007 The Chicago Tribune Company