The Associated Press
HOUSTON — Federal authorities have arrived at the troubled Harris County Jail, the subject of a federal civil rights probe, to decide whether it is operating lawfully, officials said.
The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday launched what is expected to be a five-day inspection of the jail’s downtown facilities.
The visit follows requests for federal scrutiny after inmate deaths, overcrowding, poor sanitation and questionable access to medical treatment and prescription drugs, but federal officials won’t specify what prompted their weeklong stay.
Mike Smith, who supervises detention operations as chief deputy of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, said the state inspects the county jail each April, but a federal visit had not happened, until now.
“To my knowledge, they’ve never done an inspection of us,” said Smith Tuesday in an online edition of the Houston Chronicle.
The inspection team, consisting of about nine people, told the Harris County Sheriff’s Office it would be on site through Saturday, Smith said.
At a news conference Tuesday, members of the Houston Ministers Against Crime said they were hopeful that investigators would be impartial.
“If it’s going to be right, we need somebody in there to speak on our behalf ... ,” said the Rev. R.N. Williams Sr., president of the group. “I hope the Justice Department will be fair. My prayer for them is that their hearts will be troubled each night, every night they live until they get this thing right.”
Smith said inspectors will speak to some of the nearly 11,000 inmates who are housed at the various Harris County Jail facilities.
One of the cases at the jail that has made headlines was the death of inmate Clarence Freeman in January. He had struggled with a detention officer and his death was ruled a homicide. The 42-year-old Freeman’s autopsy report said he died from respiratory failure following neck compression.
Two days later, another inmate, Margarita Saavedra, 44, died from sepsis due to a bacterial infection in her left knee, an autopsy report shows. Saavedra had hurt her knee in the jail two weeks earlier and complained to her family that medical staff was not caring for her injury, said her son, Jose Saavedra.
If the jail investigation finds violations, federal officials will suggest ways to improve conditions. If those recommendations are not met, however, federal law allows the attorney general to sue the county.
The Harris County Jail isn’t the only Texas facility that’s been investigated by federal authorities. They also conducted a similar inspection and investigation of the Dallas County Jail, which exposed deficiencies in that facility’s environmental conditions and its medical and mental health care.