Monroe County Sheriff Ruben Marté says quick action must be taken on improving the current county jail. (Courtesy: Monroe County government)
Inmates sleeping on concrete, discolored drinking water, bacteria-ridden facilities and graffiti depicting racist symbols and epithets — examples of how the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office says the county jail has deteriorated.
Sheriff Ruben Marté and other staff members gave a bleak depiction of the facility’s conditions Monday to elected officials discussing how to move forward with a new jail.
Marté is one of 14 members of the Community Justice Response Committee. The sheriff’s office has been providing information to the rest of the group, which includes county commissioners, county council members, and judges.
“The only thing that’s going to be lacking (in) what we’re about to show you visually … is the smell and the sound,” Marté said to the committee. “We have to be able to take care of the situation that we face at the present time, which to me is very crucial.”
Photos presented by the Monroe County Sheriff's Office show bacteria-ridden facilities at the jail. (Courtesy: Monroe County government)
Chief Deputy Phil Parker then gave the committee and audience members a disclaimer.
“What you’re going to see here, I’m telling you, you’re going to experience a lot of things,” Parker said. “You’re going to be shocked. There may be some bitterness here. There may be some disbelief, or maybe some anger. There may be resentment, there may be sadness. There are lots of things that you’re going to see, and they’re going to bring some emotions to what we’re going to be talking about here.”
The first exhibit was a photo showing recently arrested individuals in a holding cell, each one sleeping on concrete floors and benches without proper bedding. In some photos, they were using paper cups and wads of toilet paper as pillows.
Parker said that floor has a vent that had become full of urine, causing a foul odor.
Inmates at the Monroe County jail use paper cups and toilet paper as pillows while resting in a holding cell. (Courtesy: Monroe County government)
“These people had not been convicted of a crime; they were probably brought in hours before I took this picture,” Parker said. “I want you to think about these individuals laying on this cold floor. This is what they had to resort to.”
Next, Assistant Jail Commander Matt Demmings showed the committee photos of a laundry room inundated with water leaking from the ceiling. Photos also depicted a high-voltage area behind a dryer close to the leaking water.
Demmings said the laundry room has been in that state for at least two years.
“We have a real-life safety issue here with the inmates,” Demmings said. “We can’t have a situation where we have standing water and an inmate walking into it in this room.”
Parker said the conditions are unacceptable, adding, “we’re putting an awful lot of stock in good luck.”
Staff then passed around a large bag of debris from a window vent to the committee. Parker said the bag contained about 30 years’ worth of urine, feces and other waste.
Chief Deputy Phil Parker holds a bag containing 30 years' worth of debris caught in a vent in the Monroe County Jail. (Courtesy: Monroe County government)
“See how squeamish we are about it?” Jail Commander Kyle Gibbons asked the committee. “This is what people are living. We don’t do that to ourselves; why do we do it to them?”
Parker said the bag of debris, which appeared to be longer than his torso, came from just one vent — and that other vents in the jail had collected just as much filth.
Another photo that gave pause to many on the committee showed a pitcher of brownish-yellow water outside a cell door. Gibbons said the pitcher had been placed for inmates to drink from because the water in the cell was not working at the time.
County council member Peter Iverson asked Gibbons to clarify: “That’s drinkable water?” Gibbons replied, “That’s drinkable water.”
A pitcher of brownish-yellow drinking water sits outside a cell in the Monroe County Jail. (Courtesy: Monroe County government)
The sheriff’s office also showed pictures of bacteria-ridden toilets, showers, ceilings, walls and bedding throughout the jail.
“We’ve got to run a constitutional jail; we just do,” Parker said. “It’s up to us — I believe — no matter what brought (inmates) there, that while they’re in our care and custody, we have certain obligations to them to bring some humanity to this.”
Sheriff on racist graffiti: 'I took it personally'
Marté took the floor again to address an issue within the jail he described as personal: graffiti depicting symbols of white power and racial slurs.
Marté paused when he reached one slide in particular: a photo of graffiti reading, “No (N-words).”
“When I (saw) that word, I took it personally — very personally,” said Marté, who is Black and Latino.
Also included in the presentation were photos of graffiti depicting a swastika and an anarchist symbol on the jail walls.
Marté said his department is not moving too fast in its approach, citing the urgent need to improve the current facility while also investing in a new one.
“When I see something like that, that is throughout the jail, I cannot go slow,” Marté said. “We have a recipe that can really take off in that jail, if we give them time.”
Filth is splattered on the walls of the Monroe County Jail. (Courtesy: Monroe County government)
Marté said it’s unfair to allow such conditions to persist — both for the staff who work at the jail and those spending sentences there.
“We have to look ourselves in the mirror and sleep at night, and I’ll be honest with you: I’ve been having a hard time doing that, based on what the conditions are, what these people are living in right now,” Marté said.
Tensions among committee members persist
Meanwhile, ongoing internal disagreements among members of the committee were apparent again at Monday night’s meeting.
The meeting had initially been canceled because Mary Ellen Diekhoff, presiding judge for the Monroe County Board of Judges, was unable to attend. A notice of cancelation called her attendance “imperative.”
The meeting was later rescheduled for the same date.
Diekhoff said was surprised by the notice of cancelation, saying she did not consider herself “important enough to be singled out.”
County commissioners were supposed to meet Wednesday to ratify an ordinance seeking to adjust the composition of the committee by removing some members and adding Penny Githens, president of the Board of Commissioners.
That meeting did not occur because all county offices were closed Wednesday due to winter weather. Githens said the commissioners plan to discuss the ordinance Feb. 1.
In its current form, the ordinance would remove two judges and Health Administrator Lori Kelley from the committee while adding Githens.
Githens said the goal of the ordinance is to streamline and expedite the process of establishing a new jail.
“I hope everybody just stays focused on what the actual goal is; what the purpose is,” Githens said. “The purpose is to advise the commissioners and the county council on what we need to be doing.”
