County officials debate jail issues

By Tonia Noe-Rose, staff writer

April 30, 2008 May 01, 2008 11:39 am

— Words of disagreement were exchanged Friday during a special session of fiscal court when employees from the Carter County Detention Center and county court officers tried to siphon through why Federal Marshals pulled nearly 45 federal inmates from the jail.
Although the meeting was scheduled for a work session, several employees from the CCDC appeared in court to be heard. With over one hour of feuding back and forth about who was at fault and why, the court session became very heated. Although toward the end of the court session, Magistrate Millard Cordle spoke up and bagged the problem and a possible solution.
ÒWe need to stop the bull, get together with the Federal Marshals and see what they want from us and then get back to county business,Ó Cordle told those in court and those attending.
Jailer Randy Binion was called Tuesday by a Journal-Times reporter and asked why he lost the inmates. Binion informed the newspaper that he continues to hold a contract with the Federal Marshals and presently has 11 federal inmates at the jail.
During the interview, Binion said the main reasons why Federal Marshals pulled the inmates was due to a lack of training, lack of equipment and also due to an ongoing investigation concerning two jail employees.
ÒWe have two employees that were allegedly involved in misconduct,Ó Binion said. ÒAnd at the advise of County Attorney Bob Miller I called the investigators myself when I heard allegations because I didnÕt want anyone saying we were doing our own investigation.Ó
Due to the investigation Binion could not elaborate about the allegations involving Loraine Savage and Cliff Estep.
As for the lack of training and equipment, Binion said Federal Marshals are not satisfied that the jail has no one trained in taser use and that the jail has no in-house trainer (An employee who goes for training and then returns to the jail to train others).
ÒIn the past four years the feds have sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into our jail and we want to do whatever we can to get those federal inmates back,Ó Binion said. ÒJudge Wallace and I talked over speaker phone with the marshals just the other day to discuss what we need to do. We are going to do what we need, so that we can get back to business and all do a good job.
ÒIn fact, I have a guy going for taser training and I sent a guy for firearms training. Elwood Barker was our in-house trainer. He is no longer with us, but IÕm hoping he will come back. Even if he does not, we will do what it takes to get an in-house trainer in here,Ó Binion added.
In addition, Binion said several of his employees will be going in July to the Little Sandy Correctional Facility in Elliott County for additional training. ÒYou can never have enough training and right now we just need to all work together and try to get revenue back into the county. I know all of us at the jail will do what we can.Ó
Carter County Judge Executive Charles Wallace was asked about the jail situation.
ÒItÕs not up to me or the fiscal court on the training,Ó Wallace said. ÒThey were given $10,000 for training and as of April 25 they had only used $3,000. If they got people that are not qualified at the county jail, itÕs up to the detention center to be in compliance with the training and not the fiscal court. Randy should go and get the training.
ÒYou canÕt put money into training all the employees because they may not be there for a long time. Randy should be in-house trained in order to be qualified to do in-house training. During the conversation on the phone with the Marshal John Prinnie, Randy asked him when the federal inmates would be back, he told Randy they would not return until the jail situation is cleaned up,Ó Wallace added.
Also present during the phone conversation between Wallace, Binion and Prinnie was County Treasurer Cindy Lowe.