An inmate at Wake County jail died Friday after being found unresponsive in his cell two days earlier, sheriff’s officials said.
Two employees at the Hammond Road jail have been fired in the wake of the incident, but Sheriff Donnie Harrison says he’s still looking for answers about how the young man died.
Eighteen-year-old Jose Humberto Lara-Pineda was taken to the Wake County Detention Center March 21 after being charged with murder in connection with the strangulation death of Fredys Odilo Del Cid Ramos, twenty-eight, Raleigh police officials said.
Harrison terminated master detention officers Steven McKoy and Jowanna Mitchell after the death of Lara-Pineda. Their dismissal was not connected to the inmate’s death, but to their actions between one and four p.m. on the day of the death, Harrison told the INDY.
“If I terminate somebody, it’s a cause of concern,” Harrison says. “The only thing I can say right now is that we are in an ongoing investigation.”
The chain of events began March 19, when Raleigh police officers who had been dispatched at twelve forty-five p.m. found the body of the man later identified as Ramos in the 3200 block of Calumet Drive, not far from WakeMed hospital. Two days later, Lara-Pineda was charged with murder.
WRAL reported that Lara-Pineda was in a holding cell awaiting psychiatric evaluation when he was found unresponsive. Harrison says he does not know the cause of death.
