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Lawsuit blames police for man's holding cell hanging

A man arrested on drug charges hanged himself with a shoelace in a Temple Terrace police station.

By JOSH ZIMMER
Published March 20, 2005

TEMPLE TERRACE - Donald Rubin wasn't ready to call it a night.

So on the evening of Feb. 19, 2003, he and a longtime female friend left her boyfriend behind and ended up at the Temple Terrace Lounge on N 56th Street. For hours, they played pool, downed double shots and, as one bartender remembered, put on an awful karaoke performance.

It would be their last night out together. About two hours after leaving the bar, Rubin, 39, hanged himself with a shoelace in a Temple Terrace holding cell following their arrests on cocaine possession charges.

A lawsuit filed in recent weeks blames city police for his death. It says police officers should have noticed Rubin's suicidal tendencies and that dispatchers failed to watch him on a security camera.

"In a lot of ways we're saying they were negligent in their law enforcement," said Michael Maddux, a Tampa lawyer representing Rubin's estate.

The city, through its risk manager, Gallagher Bassett, declined to comment.

The hanging prompted an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which automatically looks into deaths that occur in police custody.

The investigation found that dispatchers stationed at Temple Terrace police headquarters ignored the security camera for at least 26 minutes while Rubin hanged himself. One dispatcher told investigators they were distracted by routine police and fire calls, as well as Temple Terrace officers involved in the arrest of Sami Al-Arian. The dispatcher acknowledged that only a police officer's urgent call for help prompted him to resume watching the cameras.

The morning Rubin died, federal agents arrested Al-Arian, a former USF professor, on terrorism-related charges. Temple Terrace police provided two officers - one in plain clothes, the other uniformed - and a marked car to pick up Al-Arian and another defendant, Sameeh Hammoudeh.

The Rubin incident is one of two unresolved hanging cases in Temple Terrace. Last September, a 24-year-old black man, Damien Johnson, was found hanging from a tree in woods near an office park. The FDLE and the FBI are investigating his death, as well as reviewing the Temple Terrace police investigation of his death.

In the Rubin case, the FDLE has interviewed officers and Rubin's acquaintances. Only his girlfriend, Lisa Ahlquist, suggested to investigators he might have been suicidal.

Ahlquist said they fought the evening of Feb. 19 over her new job as a nurse. Rubin, she told investigators, feared she might leave him. After arguing, he drove to a female friend's house to collect money on a roofing job he had performed for his friend's boyfriend.

Angelia Verran told investigators that Rubin stayed and watched television before asking to go out.

Ahlquist told investigators Rubin called twice from Verran's house, the last time in a "mumbling, rambling" voice that made her think he was drunk. Sometimes when he was inebriated, she said, Rubin made despondent comments about life that could be taken as suicidal.

Verran said they headed for the lounge about 10 p.m. She described Rubin as "friendly and happy" that night, though he argued with two men over a debt they allegedly owed him. After leaving the bar, she said they drove around Temple Terrace, where Rubin nostalgically pointed out places from his childhood.

About 3 a.m., he stopped near the Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club to snort cocaine, Verran told investigators. A police officer drove up while he did this, she said. She tried hiding the rest of the cocaine in her bra but quickly handed it over to the officer, who called for backup. At 4:48 a.m., they arrived at the Temple Terrace police station in separate cars. Verran went to the interview room while police placed Rubin in a holding cell.

FDLE investigators later viewed a videotape showing Rubin's final minutes.

At 5:09 a.m., seven minutes after receiving a notice that police were seizing his car, he began untying one of his shoes. At 5:15 a.m., he put something around his neck and tied it to one of the bars. For the next 26 minutes, no police personnel appear in the video, although it shows Rubin sitting up against the bars, not moving.

Maddux, the lawyer representing Rubin's estate, claims that police officers and dispatchers should have noticed that Rubin might commit suicide.

Police officers in training take classes that are supposed to teach them to notice unusual behavior, said FDLE research and training specialist Christie Kimbrel. They also take a class in crisis intervention, she said.

Maddux alleges that the system broke down the night Rubin died two years ago.

"If they've got people in custody," he said, "they need to be able to properly monitor them."

Josh Zimmer covers Temple Terrace and the University of South Florida area. He can be reached at 269-5314 or zimmer@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 19, 2005, 08:39:05]