By Anthony Cormier
Sarasota Herald Tribune
SARASOTA, Fla. — Police say Rose Salem is so dangerous that she cannot share a jail cell with others and may not visit with relatives, even through video monitors that other prisoners use each week.
Her family and attorneys say she is a wisp of a woman, barely 5 feet tall and 100 pounds, who is no threat to jailers or cellmates.
But law enforcement officials say Salem, 42, has connections to the street gang Second Line, took part in the October 2008 murder of a U.S. Marine who served in Iraq, and is now jailed for trying to take a hit out on a witness in her son’s murder case.
A judge is weighing Salem’s case and could ask the Sheriff’s Office to ease up on some restrictions on visits with her husband and children.
“She’s had no problems in jail, no disciplinary reports, no fights” says Carl Jackson, her husband. “She deserves better.”
Of 900 men and women in the Sarasota County Jail, only 24 are held in segregation -- a single cell where they have limited contact and privileges. And even most of those in segregation are only there for a short time and are granted visits with family.
Isolated cells are usually reserved for people with a history of fighting with prisoners or guards, those with behavioral or mental health issues or for their own protection.
For instance, a former Longboat Key police woman, Patricia Beardsley, is being held in isolation as she serves a 90-day sentence for pointing a gun at a woman while off duty.
But since Salem was jailed in early November, she has been treated differently than other prisoners. For instance, during the first 54 days in custody, Salem was moved without her family’s knowledge to a county jail in Arcadia.
“They said someone was out to kill me,” Salem wrote to the Herald-Tribune in a letter from jail.
When she was sent back to Sarasota County, following complaints from her husband and lawyers, the Sheriff’s Office told Salem she was not allowed to use the telephone to speak with relatives and that she was barred from visitation.
The commander of the jail, Capt. George Scott, told a circuit judge that Salem’s ties to the gang and her son, Deandre Tunstall, could lead to violence with rivals and potential witnesses.
She was initially charged with murder along with Tunstall in the shooting death of Delvis Fernandez, a 21-year-old Iraq war veteran who was gunned down at a U.S. 301 convenience store.
In that case, police accused Salem of driving Tunstall to the gas station, but prosecutors later dropped the murder charge.
More recently, though, Assistant State Attorney Beth Scanlan says that Salem tried to set up a murder while visiting with Tunstall over the jail’s video monitoring system.
“The crime she is accused of occurred while during a visitation,” Scanlan said in court.
But her lawyer says the circumstances are so unusual -- Salem is not accused of physical violence and has not been cited as a disciplinary problem -- that a judge should force the jail to enforce its own policies.
Circuit Judge Rochelle Curley seems to agree.
She pressured the Sheriff’s Office to explain its visitation system during a recent court hearing and asked whether there was an alternative for visitation, suggesting that all contact with family members could be videotaped.
She is expected to rule on the case soon.
In her letters to the newspaper, Salem has maintained her innocence and believes that the Sheriff’s Office is trying to pressure her to testify against her son.
“I am going to fight for my son,” she wrote. “I will always be in the way when someone is trying to put something on one of my kids.”
Copyright 2010 Sarasota Herald Tribune