Salinas, CA: County jail inmate hangs himself

Held in domestic violence case
By CLAUDIA MELÉNDEZ SALINAS
Herald Staff Writer
Posted: 07/09/2011 01:31:46 AM PDT

A 25-year-old Salinas man charged in a domestic violence case committed suicide in Monterey County Jail early Friday.

Daniel James Lariviere, 25, used a T-shirt to hang himself from a fixture in his one-man cell, said Cmdr. Lisa Nash of the Sheriff's Office. He was found dead about 3 a.m., one hour after a welfare check.

Deputies and medical staff applied CPR, but Lariviere did not recover. A postmortem examination determined he had died of asphyxia.

Lariviere was not on suicide watch but was housed by himself because of the charges against him, Nash said. He was not in isolation, but in a single cell within a pod, she said.

"Any child (endangerment) charges we take very seriously because other inmates in the population are not really accepting of those," Nash said.

Lariviere showed no signs of distress when he was last checked about 2 a.m., Nash said. All inmates are checked every hour.

Lariviere was arrested Tuesday after a domestic dispute, according to Salinas police records. He appeared in court Wednesday and was formally charged with making death threats, assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment, misdemeanor child endangerment and vandalism. He was scheduled to appear for a preliminary calendar hearing Tuesday.

According to court records, Lariviere had another case pending from a May incident in which he was accused of making death threats, causing or permitting child cruelty, violating a protective order and resisting arrest.

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He was ordered to have no contact with the victim and her 1-year-old child. In December 2010, he pleaded no contest to inflicting corporal injury on a cohabitant.
Lariviere left a suicide note in which he asked deputies to give his personal belongings to his mother.

All charges against Lariviere will be dropped, said Assistant District Attorney Terry Spitz.

Claudia Meléndez Salinas can be reached at 753-6755 or cmelendez@montereyherald.com.