Alamance County inmate dies after being found unresponsive, sheriff’s office says
A 21-year-old inmate found unresponsive at the Alamance County jail died Monday night, the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday.
Officers at the Alamance County Detention Center in Graham found Gerard Barnes Jr. unresponsive shortly before 9 p.m. on Monday, according to a sheriff’s office news release. They performed live-saving measures until the arrival of paramedics, who continued efforts to save his life.
The official cause of Barnes’ death hasn’t been determined and will be released by the medical examiner, the sheriff’s office said.
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is assisting with the investigation, which is ongoing, the release stated.
Barnes was convicted in May and June on multiple misdemeanor charges for offenses committed last summer, including larceny, attempted breaking and entering of a vehicle, carrying a concealed weapon, assaulting a female and assault on a government officer, according to the N.C. Department of Public Safety.
About 45 minutes before Barnes was found, detention officers conducting their rounds found another inmate unresponsive. The sheriff’s office did not identify the second inmate.
That inmate immediately received life-saving measures, and was administered Narcan, a brand of naloxone, a medication used to reverse opioid overdoses, the sheriff’s office said.
The inmate regained consciousness and was taken to Cone Health Alamance Regional Medical Center in Burlington, the release stated.
A search of the jail led investigators to find “a baggie containing a small amount of powder substance, which tested positive for fentanyl,” the sheriff’s office said.
Officials charged Torre Jamel Haith, a current inmate at the Alamance County jail, with a felony possession of a controlled substance on jail premises, the release stated.
Haith had been arrested on Nov. 5, on multiple felony charges, including maintaining a vehicle that was used for keeping and selling a controlled substance, possession with intent to sell and deliver a controlled substance, as well as two charges for trafficking methamphetamine.
Officials said he was quarantined for two weeks in accordance with the sheriff office’s COVID-19 policy, before being released into the jail’s general population on Nov. 19.
Additional charges in this investigation are possible, the sheriff’s office said.
This story was originally published November 23, 2021 at 7:21 PM.
