HCSO Investigating In-Custody Death of East Ridge Man

The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the in-custody death of an East Ridge man.

According to a press release issued by the HCSO, on Wednesday deputies were called to a first floor cell of the Hamilton County Jail by an inmates reporting that fellow inmate Carl Bray III was unresponsive.

Personnel immediately notified EMS and began life-saving support efforts which were continued by Hamilton County EMS who rushed Bray to a local hospital where he later died.

Bray, 54, of a Schmitt Road address in East Ridge, was arrested Tuesday evening by East Ridge police and booked into the jail on a charge of Driving Under the Influence. According to the press release, the Hamilton County District Attorney’s Office has directed the HCSO to conduct and investigation into Bray’s death.

East Ridge News Online will update this story when more information becomes available.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.