By Lynsi Burton
Skagit Valley Herald
MOUNT VERNON — Three Skagit County Jail inmates became violent and threatened jail staff in recent months, including one who injured a fellow inmate with a shank and apparently had detailed plans to stab two deputies.
The flare-ups have the sheriff and his officials looking for alternative ways to increase security in the overcrowded jail.
“We just can’t continue with business as usual,” Sheriff Will Reichardt said this week.
“It’s no longer an acceptable situation.”
The most recent episode occurred Dec. 7 when a man with possible mental health issues threatened from an isolation room to slit the throats of jail staff and cut their heads off, Undersheriff Tom Molitor said.
The inmate covered the window to his room and thrashed about the cell, hitting the walls with some kind of weapon, Molitor said.
Once the inmate fell asleep, county High Risk Team officers pounced on him and handcuffed him so he could be transferred to the intensive management unit at the state’s Monroe prison, Skagit County Chief Corrections Deputy Charlie Wend said.
The inmate was removed due to the safety risk he posed at the jail. Additional charges are pending, Wend said.
While such incidents used to occur at the jail perhaps once a year, they have grown in frequency to about once per month, Molitor said.
“We have a finite number of staff, and we’re just not able to effectively supervise these people as closely as we would like,” Molitor said.
In November, one inmate assaulted another one with a shank he somehow brought into the jail, Molitor said. Upon investigation, deputies learned that the inmate had detailed plans to stab two specific deputies in the neck in a way that would cause them to die before aid could arrive, Wend said.
In October, another unruly inmate held in an isolation room claimed he had a gun and threatened to kill jail staff. High Risk Team officers and jail staff eventually subdued and handcuffed him, but not before one deputy injured a knee in the incident.
The Sheriff’s Office is working on solutions to mitigate the danger.
Recently, the county increased the Sheriff’s Office’s budget for housing inmates out of county in 2013, from 10 to 25 inmates. Those inmates will go to the Snohomish County Jail at a cost of $650,000.
The office will also develop a more firm cap on how many inmates it can house, namely in the north end of the jail, which holds the general male population and comprises the majority of inmates.
The nearly 30-year-old jail was built to house 83. But according to jail statistics from the week of the most recent violent incident, full custody inmates averaged 181 per day. Maximum security isolation averaged 12 inmates.
Reichardt is unsure what a future cap would be, but he hopes to set one in the new year.
Because the county is obligated to book offenders whose charges require incarceration by law, as well as violent offenders in the unincorporated county, the jail may have to ask city police departments to find alternative locations to book some of their criminals, Wend said.
“It’s become such a safety issue for us,” he said.
Additionally, the county made room in its budget for a case expediter — a position that was eliminated a few years ago — to help move inmates’ cases along.
Furthermore, a new lieutenant will be hired, who, among many other duties, will assess which inmates need to stay apart from specific others — already a juggling act for jail staff who house certain gang members and inmates with rivalries in different pods.
The recent incidents are indicative of the rise in safety and behavioral issues at the jail, officials say.
“The situation is becoming more and more critical all the time,” Reichardt said. “… It’s just been kind of like a pot that’s been simmering.”
City and county officials are still discussing options for a bigger and safer jail. If approved, it would take several years for that to become reality.
Copyright 2012 Skagit Valley Herald (Mount Vernon, WA)
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