Jail gets 50,000 masks. Charlotte lawyer wants to know: Why isn’t anybody wearing them?
The Mecklenburg County Jail has received a shipment of 50,000 protective surgical masks, which it began distributing to jail personnel on Monday.
Yet a leader into the effort to better protect jail inmates from COVID-19 says very few of the jail’s personnel were wearing the masks when he visited a client in the facility later in the day.
Charlotte attorney Tim Emry also told the Observer in an email that if the jailers won’t wear the masks, they should be given to inmates.
“Only two detention officers I saw had masks, and they were working behind glass at the information desk,” Charlotte attorney Tim Emry said in a Tuesday email to the Observer.
“ALL of the others had no masks or gloves, including the two that were in direct contact with my client. It’s irresponsible to not make masks and gloves mandatory ... as (officers) are working with a HIGHLY vulnerable community of people.”
The masks are optional for jail employees, said Dejah Gilliam, public information manager for the Mecklenburg Sheriff’s Office.
But Gilliam said jail staffers are being “strongly encouraged” to wear them “especially during times that they’re interacting with others.”
The jail ordered the protective gear on April 1 at a cost of $27,500, she said. More than 10,300 were given out Monday.
While the masks are designed to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, only a limited number of the jail’s almost 1,400 inmates will receive them, Gilliam said.
The jail’s employees are considered a bigger threat to contract the disease, COVID-19, because they circulate in a broad area outside the jail, she said. Inmates, on the other hand, mostly remain in the building where they face more limits on their movement and interactions, Gilliam said.
Inmates who may have been exposed to the coronavirus, those who are considered at “high risk,” and people booked into jail who show symptoms will receive masks, she said.
As of Monday morning, state officials have reported more than 1,200 cases of COVID-19 and 29 deaths in Mecklenburg County.
No cases have turned up among Mecklenburg jail inmates, though a jailer and a nurse at the facility have tested positive for COVID-19. As of Monday, Gilliam said, no inmates were being quarantined.
The jail has been a focal point for a coalition of lawyers and community activists fearing an outbreak of the disease among inmates. It is the largest local detention center in North Carolina.
However, while cases of COVID-19 have been increasing in state and federal prisons in North Carolina, the Mecklenburg jail has proven far safer so far. Gilliam says the jail, unlike the prisons, keeps inmates in single-occupancy cells. The jail has also banned visitors, and it conducts daily health screening for employees and new inmates.
As part of its prevention protocols, inmates can eat in their cells, Gilliam said. If they choose to take meals in the common areas they must socially distance themselves.
Similar precautions are in place in the recreation yard, where jailers have temporarily removed basketballs and soccer balls, Gilliam said. Officers limit the number of inmates in the yard at any one time to better maintain safe distances between them.
Some inmates released
In one of a series of steps aimed at lowering health risks in the jail, Mecklenburg County judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed on a earlier plan to release low-level offenders or those with a higher risk of complications from COVID-19.
Chief Mecklenburg District Court Judge Elizabeth Trosch last month also handed down an order temporarily blocking arrests of most types of misdemeanors.
That has not stopped a series of protests by a coalition of lawyers — Emry among them — and community activists who say there are too many arrests for low-level charges. According to jail statistics obtained by the Charlotte Observer, 21 new inmates were booked on Sunday while 12 were released.
The jail held 1,392 inmates on Monday morning, according to the sheriff’s office, down more than 200 since efforts to control the population began in mid-March.
Some of biggest decreases have occurred in the number of prisoners being held before trial on misdemeanor charges. That number stood at 68 on Monday, down about 30 percent from mid-March.
Almost 64 percent of the inmates, or 889, are being held on state charges; 35 percent, or 484, face federal charges or sentencing.
Both groups have been impacted by the pandemic. State and federal trials have been delayed to at least June 1. Meanwhile, federal prisons have placed the transfer of new inmates on hold until May 18, meaning federal inmates face longer stays in the jail.
Emry says that while inmates are there, the jail should do a better job keeping them safe from COVID-19.
“The people who are being held should be given an opportunity to wear protective items, especially if the detention officers have no interest in protecting themselves or others,” he said in the email.
“Most of the people in jail have not been convicted of a crime. They are simply too poor to buy their freedom. Being in jail should not be a death sentence.”
This story was originally published April 20, 2020 at 2:46 PM.
