Incarcerated man dies after being found unresponsive at Florence prison
An incarcerated man being held at the Arizona State Penitentiary Eyman Complex in Florence died Tuesday after being found unresponsive.
George Morando, 46, died at Florence Hospital in Florence after being found unresponsive in his cell with a cloth sheet tied around his neck, according to a statement from the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry.
Staff attempted life-saving measures on Morando until fire department personnel and paramedics arrived onsite and took him to the hospital while he was unconscious, according to the corrections department.
Morando was pronounced dead later that evening with asphyxiation to the brain as his listed cause of death, according to the department.
An internal criminal investigation was underway. According to ADCRR, inmate deaths are investigated in conjunction with the County Medical Examiner's Office.
Morando was serving a second-degree murder and unlawful imprisonment conviction since 2007, according to the department.
Also on Tuesday, a man being held at Pima County Jail was found dead in his cell. According to the Pima County Sheriff's Office, Yunan Mohammed Altib Tutu, 26, had refused to eat.
Tutu's death is the second one at the county jail in as many months. Robert Tsalabounis, 38, was found unresponsive in his cell on Dec. 16 and later died.
Authorities said neither man showed signs of trauma and there were no suspicious circumstances.
Advocates and criminal-justice experts say discrepancies in reporting and investigating these in-custody deaths make it difficult to know how widespread a problem they are or to address the underlying causes.
The Arizona Republic found that statewide at least once a month, someone dies during an arrest or in a county jail — 64 cases between Jan. 1, 2017, and Aug. 4, 2020.
Reporter Angela Cordoba Perez contributed to this article.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Incarcerated man dies after being found unresponsive at Florence prison
