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Video: Drone drops marijuana, cellphone for Ohio inmate

The drone dropped a pouch containing the items into an outdoor recreation area at the jail

Adam Ferrise
Advance Ohio Media, Cleveland

EUCLID, Ohio — Cuyahoga County officials on Monday released video of a drone dropping marijuana and a cellphone onto the roof of the county-run Euclid Jail.

The incident happened about 9 p.m. on June 21. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office is reviewing the case to see if criminal charges are warranted. The drone dropped a pouch containing the items into an outdoor recreation area at the jail.

The video shows several inmates sitting outside and two playing the popular backyard bean-bag game cornhole. Several inmates looked up at the drone which is out of the surveillance camera’s view.

One inmate readies an orange jail-issued shirt in his hands as he follows the drone. The pouch drops and the inmate swoops in, picks the package up and wraps it in the shirt.

That inmate walks back inside the jail with the pouch. The others go back to playing the game.

Issues with cellphones, drugs and other items finding their way inside the county-run jails have been an on-going issue.

Drug-incidents at the jail nearly tripled over a three-year span ending in 2018 at the jail.

Ohio Attorney General’s Office prosecutors indicted two corrections officers and inmates suspected of being involving in a drug- and cellphone-smuggling ring at the main downtown jail.

The attorney general’s office criminal probe of the jail has so far netted indictments against 11 current and former jail employees. An FBI civil rights probe of the jail is on-going. Both investigations were launched after a string of inmate deaths in 2018, including three of drug overdoses, and a U.S. Marshals report that found “inhumane” conditions for inmates.

©2019 Advance Ohio Media, Cleveland

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