Suicide in a cell? Man’s family is skeptical

By STEPHANIE FARR
Philadelphia Daily News

farrs@phillynews.com 215-854-4225

WHY WOULD a 36-year-old man with two children, a loving family, a girlfriend whom he planned to marry and no history of mental-health problems commit suicide?

Why would he do it in a West Philadelphia police station, after being picked up on a bench warrant for missing a status hearing for allegedly selling bootleg DVDs?

And how could he do it in a cell with a solid ceiling and while on crutches and in a cast, having just been released from the hospital three days prior?

These are the questions Brian Irvin’s family can’t answer and can’t get over.

According to police, Irvin used his sweatshirt to hang himself in a holding cell in the 18th Police District, at 55th and Pine streets, about 3:40 p.m. Feb. 3.

He had been stopped at 8:50 a.m. that day at 59th and Market streets for “loitering and acting suspicious,” and when cops ran a check on his name, they discovered that a bench warrant had been issued for his arrest on Feb. 1, said Homicide Sgt. Robert Kuhlmeier, who is supervising the investigation into Irvin’s death.

The bench warrant was for his failure to show up for a status hearing on a charge of “unauthorized transfer of sounds on recording devices,” police said.

The charge regards allegations that Irvin possessed, reproduced or tried to sell bootleg DVDs, according to police.

His girlfriend of 12 years, Sharon Baker, said that the DVDs he was arrested for carrying were for his personal use and that the device he was found with was a DVD player, not a recorder.

She acknowledged that the movies he had were copies, but said that he had no more than one copy of each film and that he had not been trying to sell them.

Irvin’s family doesn’t deny that he had several other arrests in his background for drugs, theft and related offenses, but said that he had never done hard time and that his drug arrests had been for smoking or having marijuana.

Most of Irvin’s arrests did not result in convictions and for those that did, he appears to have served nothing but probation, court records show. His most serious charge was for aggravated assault, but those charges were withdrawn.

“Yeah, he’s been arrested numerous times, but why now, for something petty – why would he hang himself now?” Irvin’s older brother, Galen, said. “I could see if they sentence you to a hundred years. Yeah, maybe things start going through your mind, but not for this.”

In the living room of the family home in University City, Baker, Galen Irvin, and Irvin’s parents, George and Lynda, talked about Brian as a “happy-go-lucky, free-spirited and outgoing man,” with no history of mental-health problems.

“I know my son didn’t kill himself,” George Irvin said.

“We all know he didn’t kill himself,” the group responded in unison.

But the family’s assertions are contrary to the medical examiner’s report, which ruled that Irvin’s death was a suicide by hanging, according to Jeff Moran, spokesman for the M.E.’s office.

Irvin’s family said, aside from the unlikelihood that Brian would have hanged himself over a minor charge, it would have been physically improbable for him to do so.

Irvin, who worked as a day laborer, had surgery on his ankle Jan. 29 and pins, screws and a cast were set in place, Lynda Irvin said. He was released from the hospital Jan. 31 – on crutches. Baker said he couldn’t stand without them when he left her house about 7:30 a.m. Feb. 3. to pick up clothing. That was the last time she or any other acquaintance saw or heard from him.

Not only would it have been difficult for Irvin to stand without the crutches, but he also would have had to hang himself from the bars of the cell, since the ceilings are solid, the family and their civil-rights attorney, Brian Zeiger, said.

“He’d have to have tied a sweatshirt on the top of the vertical bar [on his cell door], have it not slide down or have it rest on a horizontal bar, then climb up there, on crutches, having just undergone surgery, without anyone else seeing him,” said Zeiger.

Kuhlmeier, the police supervisor, said he would not get into the “dimensions” or the height that Irvin hanged himself at, but said that hanging one’s self from anything is possible.

“You can hang yourself from a toilet bowl on the floor as long as you’re pressing against your airway,” he said. “A height is convenient, quicker, but you can do it from a low point.”

Kuhlmeier said Irvin was alone in his cell when the hanging occurred.

Zeiger, who typically handles criminal cases and is familiar with the cell setup at the 18th, said he finds it hard to believe that no one in the usually busy cellblock noticed that Irvin was trying to hang himself.

“There’s sometimes so many people that there’s not enough room for everybody to lay down,” said Zeiger. “The idea that there’s one guy in a cell by himself and that nobody hears him or sees him is absolutely baffling to me.”

Kuhlmeier said checks are done on the cells by officers every 15 minutes. He would not say when Irvin was last seen alive, but said that he was found hanging at 3:40 p.m. and that police cut him down, performed CPR and called medics, who transported him to Mercy Hospital.

“He was pronounced at 4:32 at the hospital,” Kuhlmeier said. “Whatever police and medics did, it kept him alive for an hour.”

But the Irvin family said that medics had never been called and that they had been told by a hospital official, who informed them of their son’s death at 4:56 p.m., that police had brought him to the hospital.

“The woman who called said my son was brought in with no heartbeat, no pulse, no response,” Lynda Irvin said. “I asked who brought him in and she said, ‘The police.’

“The way the lady worded it, I knew the hospital was separating themselves from this case. She assured me he did not die there. He was brought there dead.”

Kuhlmeier, whose department, along with Internal Affairs, is investigating the death, as is protocol for all unusual cell-block occurrences, said they were awaiting toxicology results from the Medical Examiner’s Office.

“At this point though, there’s nothing questionable about the case,” he said.

Although he could not quote numbers or statistics, Kuhlmeier said cell block suicides and deaths happen “occasionally.”

But this is one occasion the Irvins cannot observe without question.

“We were talking about getting married within a year,” Baker said. “Everyone cared about him and loved him. He had things to live for.”