A 70-year-old corrections officer died by suicide Monday after shooting himself with his service weapon at a Huntsville prison, officials said.
Authorities did not release the man's name, but said that fellow officers found him around 1 a.m. sitting outside the guard picket at the Wynne Unit.
He was not under investigation and did not have a disciplinary history, according to prison spokesman Jeremy Desel.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with his family," Desel said. "We have a crisis response intervention support team that reported to the unit this morning and is available for support should anyone need it."
The death comes less than two years after another officer at a Huntsville-area unit fatally shot himself at work.
In that case, fellow workers found the 40-year-old in the guard picket at the Ferguson Unit, with a gunshot wound to the head, The Huntsville Item reported at the time.
It's not clear how many officer suicides the department has seen in recent years, and Desel wasn't sure whether the prison system tracks such deaths unless they occur on the unit.
Last year, a Houston Chronicle investigation showed that many law enforcement agencies do not track officer suicides.
Source: chron.com, Keri Blakinger, February 12, 2019
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