From his cell at the Adelanto immigration detention facility on July 11, 2017, Romulo Avelica Gonzalez scrawled out a journal entry on lined notebook paper.
“Another person hanged himself,” he wrote in Spanish. “Lost asylum.”
It was one of five suicide attempts over the course of eight months at the facility that houses nearly 2,000 detainees. Four months earlier, a Nicaraguan man had been found hanging in his cell from his bed sheets.
And so Avelica, 49, said he wasn’t surprised by the news that federal officials who turned up for an unannounced inspection in May had discovered significant health and safety risks.
Read the full story at LATimes.com.
Mental health professionals urge people experiencing suicidal thoughts to seek help by contacting the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at (800) 273-8255.