Prisoner found dead after cell fight

Shane Su­perville

A 48-year-old pris­on­er has died af­ter an al­leged as­sault at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca, prompt­ing a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Christo­pher Ban­field was found un­re­spon­sive in his cell around 5.30 a.m. on Tues­day dur­ing rou­tine in­spec­tions by prison of­fi­cers.

Po­lice said an of­fi­cer no­ticed Ban­field ly­ing in a fe­tal po­si­tion on the floor. He re­port­ed­ly had a swollen face and blood was seen com­ing from his mouth. Oth­er of­fi­cers were alert­ed and Ban­field was tak­en to the prison in­fir­mary, where no vi­tal signs were de­tect­ed.

A dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer lat­er pro­nounced him dead and or­dered the re­moval of the body.

Of­fi­cers from the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion and the Re­gion II Homi­cide Bu­reau vis­it­ed the prison and con­duct­ed en­quiries.

Ac­cord­ing to in­ves­ti­ga­tors, in­ter­views with Ban­field's cell­mates re­vealed he was in­volved in an ar­gu­ment with an­oth­er in­mate on Mon­day night which es­ca­lat­ed in­to a fight.

Po­lice were told Ban­field sus­tained sev­er­al blows to the head, face and body dur­ing the al­ter­ca­tion.

His body was tak­en to a fu­ner­al home pend­ing a post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion.

So far there has been no re­sponse from act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.