Inmate's Jump Said No Fault of Law Officers

              18-A Thurs., Feb. 4,1982 SHREVEPORT-BOSSIER The Times
Inmate's jump
said no fault
of law officers
By RAY WADDLE
Of The Times Staff
The apparent suicide of Jerry Anderson, the 17-
year-old Caddo Correctional Institute inmate who
jumped from a local hospital room window last week,
was not the fault of local law enforcement officials,
according to a district attorney's investigation.
Caddo District Attorney Paul Carmouche made that
statement in a letter to the Caddo Parish Police Jury
Wednesday, outlining a weeklong investigation into
Anderson's death.
However, one juror expressed dissatisfaction with
the report and said he would ask the FBI and NAACP
to make their own inquiries.
Carmouche had been asked to look into the matter
by members of the Police Jury, who had raised
questions about the inmate's death.
Anderson jumped out of an eighth-floor open win-dow
at LSU Medical Center on Jan. 24, landing on the
roof of the first-floor cafeteria. He died three days
later.
Anderson, a Shreveport resident arrested Jan. 11 for
armed robbery, had been admitted to the hospital Jan.
22 for tests after suffering from seizures while in jail,
according to medical reports.
Based on reports made by Shreveport police, the
Caddo Parish Sheriff's Department and LSU Security
Police, Carmouche said he concluded that "no parish
agency or department is at fault in the death of this
individual."
However, Juror Donald Atych said at Wednesday's
meeting that he is not satisfied by the investigation.
"We are asking the NAACP and the FBI to investigate
because we do feel his civil rights were violated,"
Aytch told the group.
Atych said he appreciated the report, but added that
the question was not whether Anderson jumped out the
window. He questioned why the youth was admitted to
the hospital in the first place.
Atych said he had heard reports that Anderson had
been beaten and raped at CCI and that a resulting
despondency led to his suicide.
Carmouche said yesterday that he also had "heard
rumors about a beating, but my inquiries into the
question put to the attending doctors revealed no
foundation at all for those rumors."
Carmouche said that, according to reports, An-derson
was awaiting brain scan testing in an eighth-floor
room when he jumped. He was being watched by
a hospital security guard, which Carmouche said is a
standard procedure when a prison inmate is admitted
to a hospital.
The window had earlier been opened for ventilation,
Carmouche said. The youth, who had leg irons on at the
time, jumped head first out the window, he continued.
The attending guard grabbed the legs of Anderson's
pajamas as he jumped, but could not stop the fall,
Carmouche said.
Anderson, who turned himself in to police for the
robberies of two First National Bank branches in
December and January, left a Bible and note near his
bed before jumping, Carmouche said. The note read,
"The time has come to say those words I never said —
'Thou shalt not steal' — which I have done which
makes me not God's son."