Incarcerated man dies in Pima County jail; cause unknown
An incarcerated man died at a Pima County jail in Tucson on Friday morning.
Just before 11 a.m., a corrections officer at the Pima County Adult Detention Complex found 38-year-old Robert Tsalabounis unresponsive in his cell, according to a news release from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.
The corrections officer immediately began administering emergency lifesaving measures while waiting for medical staff and Tucson Fire Department staff to arrive, the news release said. After attempting to resuscitate Tsalabounis, medical staff pronounced him dead.
Sheriff’s detectives visited the jail and found no signs of trauma and no suspicious circumstances.
The Sheriff’s Department is investigating the cause of death, which is still unknown.
Tsalabounis was booked into jail on Sept. 17 on multiple trespassing warrants and a failure to appear in court for indecent exposure, according to Deputy Marissa Hernandez, a spokesperson for the Sheriff's Department.
Across the state, The Arizona Republic found that at least once a month, someone dies during an arrest or in a county jail.
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.
In Arizona, The Republic found at least 64 cases in which a person died in a county jail or during an arrest between Jan. 1, 2017, and Aug. 4, 2020. On average, that means it happens every 21 days, based on The Republic's data.
Juliette Rihl covers housing insecurity and homelessness for The Arizona Republic. She can be reached at jrihl@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @julietterihl.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Incarcerated man dies in Pima County jail in Tucson
