State officials confirmed that Bridgewater State Hospital fired three guards on Friday, according to The Boston Globe. Despite its name, Bridgewater State Hospital is not an accredited hospital. It houses and provides mental healthcare for convicted criminals and pretrial detainees being examined for mental competence.

These terminations come in the wake of the investigation into the 2009 death of Joshua Messier, a 23-year-old patient at Bridgewater. Messier died from a heart attack that was ruled a homicide in 2010 by a state medical examiner. Security footage from the Department of Correction shows the guards using the “suitcase’’ technique, in which they pressed hard on Messier’s back in order to force his chest to his knees. This protocol can cause suffocation and is banned in Massachusetts prisons.


Regarding these three former hospital employees, The Globe reports:

Department spokesman Darren Duarte said disciplinary hearings during the summer “revealed that these individuals’ actions violated DOC policy.’’ The firings bring to five the number of correction officials who have lost their jobs after the death of Messier, a onetime student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Among them was the correction commissioner, who resigned in July.

For more information on the state investigation surrounding Messier’s death, read the full report here.