The Saga Continues at Morrow County Jail – Employee Fired for Smuggling Drugs
After this, 2 jailbreaks, 1 suicide, multiple overdoses, 100% COVID infection rate, + collapse of ICE detainee denied medical care, how can this jail still be open?
Mt. Gilead, OH – How much incompetence can one county jail exhibit, and continue to operate?
The most recent incident at the Morrow County Correctional Facility (MCCF) is the firing of a corrections officer who allegedly smuggled contraband (drugs and tobacco) into the jail.
Ohio Immigrant Alliance wonders if the incident is just being covered up, or also investigated. Today, we add a second filing to our already outstanding public records request from September, seeking records about this crime; alleged personal use of a county vehicle by Sheriff John Hinton; and information about a serious medical incident involving an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainee.
In that incident, documented here, a man detained for ICE at MCCF had been begging for a doctor from Friday evening to mid-day Saturday and was ignored by jail staff, before collapsing in the lunchroom, bleeding profusely from his face. Only then was he taken for emergency treatment. In 911 calls obtained by the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, a jail employee showed callous indifference to his life, dismissively claiming to not know much about the man because he was an ICE detainee.
This man’s life was put at risk due to the facility’s lack of medical staff and inhumane treatment of people it is paid to house, feed, and clothe. Judge Sarah D. Morrison referred to the situation at MCCF as a “medical relay race [that] can jeopardize the safety of a detainee whose health rapidly declines in the off-hours.” County Prosecutor Charles Howland told the Ohio Immigrant Alliance that the jail is doing the best it can with the “facts on hand.” But the fact is, they were warned this could happen by a federal judge, and ignored her (or in the case of Prosecutor Howland, failed to even read her order).
These are just the latest in a long line of incidents of mismanagement, abuse, and incompetence at the MCCF. “As we’ve been saying for months, said Lynn Tramonte, Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, “the Morrow County Jail must be closed.”
Following is a “Timeline of Incompetence” exhibited by the Morrow County Correctional Facility in recent months, as well as the refusal of County leadership to step in.
February: Freedom For Immigrants filed a complaint with the Morrow County Sheriff’s Office; ICE; and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights & Civil Liberties detailing fifteen serious violations of the ICE 2019 National Detention Standards at MCCF. Overcrowding, lack of soap and access to clean facilities, and deficient health care, all risk factors for a COVID outbreak, were reported.
March: Sheriff Hinton received protective masks, but refused to use them, saving them for when the jail had its first COVID case.
April: A series of overdoses inside the jail prompted this article in Progressive Magazine. Amanda Carpenter, whose boyfriend spent time inside MCCF, said: “There’s drugs smuggled into there all the time. When they book them in, they don’t properly search them.”
Meanwhile, American Prospect, Reveal News, Columbus Free Press, ABC 6, WCPO, and many other outlets exposed the unsanitary conditions at MCCF and its risk for becoming a COVID hotspot. The first COVID cases at the jail were formally reported on April 23. Oscar Lopez of Dayton died of COVID after being released from MCCF and sent home to quarantine.
May: Columbus City Council President Pro Tempore Liz Brown sent a letter to Morrow County Health Commissioner expressing concerns about her constituents detained at the jail for ICE. At a May 18 meeting of the Morrow County Health District, the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, Dr. Laura Chambers-Smith, and allies warned that the jail conditions were rife for a massive outbreak. Our information was disputed and rejected by the Commissioner and Board of Health.
In an ACLU of Ohio lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Sarah D. Morrison ordered the release of several medically-vulnerable ICE detainees, given “Morrow’s inability to control the spread of infection, its demonstrated failures at monitoring detainees’ symptoms, and its poor conditions [which] create[d] an unconstitutionally acceptable environment.”
Thermometers used in the facility were found to have expired in 2016. No medical doctor had been seen in the facility in months, and nursing staff hours were limited, even when more people began to get sick. Corrections Officers were placed in medical roles. In her scathing order Morrison said: “Through inadequate testing, inadequate observation, and inadequate isolation strategies, Morrow allowed its infection numbers to soar exponentially, and now every detainee in the large and small dormitories has been infected. This reckless, out-of-control spread of infection is constitutionally unacceptable.”
After 61% of the inmates tested positive, the jail stopped isolating and testing people, accepting that the entire population was already infected. No doctors attended to patients in the facility. MCCF stopped taking in new inmates and ICE detainees.
June: Ohio Immigrant Alliance issued a report about the conditions that lead to MCCF becoming 100% COVID-19 positive, including violations of the jail’s own Infectious Disease Control Program and National Detention Standards required in the ICE contract. The report included analysis from medical professionals and was covered in the Mansfield News Journal.
Hundreds of Ohioans signed a petition to the jail and County Commissioners demanding closure of the jail. Both the report and petition were delivered directly to Commissioner Whiston on June 8. The Sheriff and County Health District attempted to refute the findings, and continue to do so to this day.
Their problem is one of simple math and logic–you cannot claim a 61% infection rate unless you test 100% of the population. They did not, but they did move positive people back into areas with people who were not tested. You only do this when assuming 100% exposure. They also had corrections officers administering COVID tests improperly, without medical training, greatly increasing the risk of false negatives. Yet, the jail reopened to new inmates.
July: Ohio Immigrant Alliance testified at the Ohio Advisory Committee of the US Commission on Civil Rights about the conditions at MCCF, asking for federal intervention.
August: On August 8, an inmate killed himself despite having warned that he was going to committee suicide and supposedly being “on watch” within the facility. No information about his suicide has ever been released to the public. On August 21, Kevin Fields escaped from the jail. He was apprehended around 11:30pm the next day, and the public wasn’t notified about this escape until hours after it happened. Fields is diabetic and was not receiving insulin at MCCF.
September: Zebadiah Eggers escaped from the jail around 7pm on September 8, but again the public was not notified. Eggers ended up getting a ride from a stranger who did not know that Eggers was a wanted person. Later that night, Eggers was re-arrested by deputies and only then was the public notified about his escape.
Ohio Immigrant Alliance filed a public records request with the Morrow County Prosecutor’s Office, requesting information regarding medical care, interpreters, procurement of supplies, staffing, and other aspects of jail management that appear to be lacking. As of this writing, the request has not been acknowledged or responded to in any way.
A man detained for ICE collapsed and was given medical attention after more than 12 hours of beginning for help. The 911 records about this incident show a callous indifference to the man’s plight.
A corrections officer was fired from MCCF after being caught on video smuggling drugs and other contraband into the facility.
October: Ohio Immigrant Alliance sent a second public records request seeking information about this and other incidents.
Added Tramonte: “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Everyone in Morrow County knows that this jail is a joke. The public is also starting to realize that Sheriff Hinton likes a good cover-up, and is trying to keep all of the incidents out of the limelight. The bottom line is, when Morrow County agreed to incarcerate people, whether for the county or for ICE, they agreed to at least try to keep them alive. Instead, they act like they have absolutely no responsibility to the people in their jail and their families. The situation is out of control and MCCF must close before more people die.”
Follow the Ohio Immigrant Alliance on Twitter @tramontela
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