An inmate awaiting trial on murder and drug charges died late Friday at the Baltimore City Detention Center after he was found unconscious in his cell with a needle and syringe in his arm.
Quentin A. Morgan, 33, was pronounced dead shortly before midnight in the center's infirmary. A correctional officer making rounds about 11: 30 p.m. noticed that Morgan's head was drooping and that he was unresponsive in his single-bunk cell, police and jail officials said.
Morgan was pronounced dead minutes later after efforts to revive him failed, authorities said.
An unidentified substance was found in the syringe and drugs appeared to be involved, but homicide has not been ruled out in the death, said Sgt. Laura Lu Herman, a state police spokeswoman. An autopsy is planned.
The state Division of Pretrial Detention and Services, which operates the detention center, also was investigating how the syringe and its contents got into the maximum-security facility.
The flow of illegal drugs into the detention center -- and state prisons -- has been a continuing problem.
Patuxent Institution, for example, has stepped up security in the wake of two incidents in which drugs got into the maximum-security prison last month. In one case, an inmate died of an overdose.
"What happens on the street is what happens inside the walls," LaMont W. Flanagan, commissioner of Pretrial Detention and Services, said yesterday. "It's only transferred. We make efforts to keep it out, but it finds a way of getting in."
Morgan, formerly of the first block of Glenns Road in Severna Park, was among five people suspected of being members of a Northwest Baltimore drug gang indicted in May by a federal grand jury.
Morgan was charged with murder in the June 1996 slaying of Angelo Howard, 31, of the 5200 block of Denmore Ave. in Northwest Baltimore, described by authorities as a street-level dealer, and with attempting to kill a potential witness in the case.
Pub Date: 8/03/97
