“We could leave this jail anytime…”
Those were the chilling words of an inmate who contacted The Yazoo Herald, desperate to draw attention to what he says is a lack of security and staff knowledge of handling COVID at the local county jail.
An inmate, whose identification is being withheld for safety reasons, said that he is being housed in what is called the “segregation unit” at the Yazoo County Regional Correctional Facility with other inmates who have tested positive for COVID.
Sheriff Jacob Sheriff told the Board of Supervisors last Friday that there are 22 state inmates who have tested positive for COVID. But he said they are not housed with healthy inmates. He added that there is one county inmate with COVID and two employees who also tested positive.
Sheriff did admit that the state segregation unit, which consists of five stalls, is overcrowded with many inmates “piled on top of one another.” State prison officials said they do not have the ability to transfer those inmates at this time, but they are requesting “pure bleach” to have the inmates clean the units.
But the inmate who contacted The Herald said that he is being housed with COVID inmates. He said one inmate with COVID was recently brought into the segregation unit.
“…he was placed in a segregated cell block with inmates who are healthy and do not have the Coronavirus,” the inmate said. “I am one of those inmates and am damned upset this inexperienced jail staff have endangered my life I have high blood pressure and damaged lungs from 30 previous years of smoking.”
The inmate said COVID cases are steadily increasing within the local jail.
“This is a serious situation,” he said. “Most of the staff are scared to even enter the cells. The halls are like a ghost town. The public deserves to know what is transpiring in their regional jail.”
Aside from COVID, security is also an issue at the local jail. Sheriff admits that there have been many problems with contraband entering the jail and the perimeter fence being destroyed.
“We have got to do something,” Sheriff said. “We’ve got two officers walking on the state and county side. It is dangerous.”
Staffing the local jail has been a problem in the past with many employees leaving for higher-paid jobs at the local federal prison.
“Cell windows were broken to induce the off-loading of pounds of drugs, alcohol and cell phones,” one inmate said. “There was also a very violent riot…involving about 60 inmates with serious injuries. It never made the news. The public is being duped.”
