Hays County Jail Comes Under Scrutiny As COVID Reaches Jail Population

Terra Rivers | Managing Editor

The Hays County Jail has come under scrutiny by local activists after the Sheriff’s Office reported they were starting to see COVID cases within the population.

Several attorneys, activists, inmates, and their families have accused Hays County Law Enforcement of endangering inmates’ lives by not releasing them, providing personal protective equipment, or employing preventive measures.

According to officials, the Hays County Jail population consists of 436 inmates; 245 inmates are currently housed in Hays County while the remaining are being outsourced to other counties.

According to Hays County Sheriff Gary Cutler, the county is currently outsourcing more inmates than normal due to COVID to ensure the inmates’ health while dealing with jail space limitations. The Hays County Jail can house up to 311 inmates while following the Texas Jail Commission’s 10% availability requirement.

Also, due to COVID, officers have to quarantine inmates in five separate groups: positive, negative, refused, medically vulnerable, and those awaiting testing results. State regulations require inmates to be separated by gender, types/level of crimes committed, and those that are 17 or younger.

“Every day is a different day. Every day we have to figure out where we are going to put this person and that person and this person,” said Hays County Jail Lieutenant Erica Hernandez.

On Thursday, July 2, 40 inmates tested positive for COVID-19; of those, 36 were still in the facility. Ninety-nine officers had been tested with nine correction officers and two correction specialists testing positive.

The Sheriff’s office has 4 law enforcement deputies who have tested positive. There have been reports that many who have been tested have yet to receive their results.

Many of the large laboratories across the state who are handling COVID-19 testing are experiencing a backlog due to the recent rise in testing. Clinical Pathologies Laboratories recently announced they would be closing their doors temporarily due to a backlog of testing.

During a recent report to the Commissioners Court, Hays County Jail Captain Julie Villalpando said only three of the positive COVID-19 cases amongst the jail population were showing minor symptoms; the rest of the positive cases are asymptomatic.

The jail medical team is outsourced to Wellpath. Inmates are checked several times throughout the day to see how they are doing and whether they require anything. They are also doing temperature checks on all inmates twice a day. Wellpath has also taken the initiative to educate the inmates on COVID and how to be proactive to help keep them healthy.

Since the pandemic began, local activists have been calling for the release of inmates.

Cutler said he doesn’t have the authority to release inmates without an official court order from a judge. But since the state went into lockdown in late March, civil and criminal trials have been placed on hold.

In early May, some courts reopened in a limited capacity, but most judges only heard civil cases using virtual hearings or scheduled in-person situations.

According to data from Hays County Jail, on July 2, 145 of 245 inmates are in on priority violent crimes; the jail is currently housing 30 inmates on murder charges or convictions, 54 inmates on sexual offense charges or convictions, and 61 inmates on aggravated assault charges or convictions.

A number of the inmates are individuals who have been sentenced and are simply waiting to be transferred to state prison, said Hays County Jail Lieutenant J. Saenz.

“All of our inmates have gone through the pre-trial court system to figure out whether they’re eligible for a lower bond or a PR bond or some other caveat to be released from the facility,” he said. “We don’t have anyone here for low-level offenses. Even before COVID, we are not in a position to keep low level, nonviolent offenses here.”

Bridgette Alexis-Johnson told KXAN her brother, Michael, who has been awaiting trial on domestic violence charges for approximately the last year, reported he had contracted COVID-19 and had not been provided any PPE. According to KXAN’s report, he did not receive a mask until the last week of June.

Saenz said medical staff visits with inmates at intake, and they find out where they sit with the centers of disease control guidelines.

Individuals identified as members of the vulnerable population are provided a KN95 mask, and others receive surgical type masks. According to staff, masks are distributed throughout the jail’s population regularly, and all staff members are wearing masks and gloves to protect inmates as well as themselves.

Jail staff has maintained a detailed record of all COVID-19 related procedures, preventive efforts, and distributions since the pandemic began. The documents include emails, logs of masks, and other PPE distribution, as well as when dorms and common areas are sanitized.

Corridor News saw live evidence that jail staff uses masks to protect inmates, but inmates themselves are not wearing them.

Each inmate is also given an individual bar of soap for personal use, and each dormitory is provided with a large bottle of liquid soap. Saenz said their staff will put in fresh bottles of soap and watch inmates fill personal containers, such as empty hot sauce bottles, to place with their things; once the main bottle is empty, they’ll request more and be refused by the guards. “We have to be judicious with PPE because if we run out or it dries up, then we’re right back where we started,” Saenz said.

When COVID-19 first hit Texas, stores throughout the state sold out of essential supplies such as soap, toilet paper, and cleaning supplies as Texans tipped into their primal hoarding instinct; officials said inmates are no different.

“We try to be judicious because we don’t know when supply is going to dry up,” Saenz said. “So, we also make cloth masks that we periodically distribute throughout the facility. Some inmates have two or three that they may choose not to wear or choose to trash them.”

According to Hernandez, some female inmates use the masks as hair ties, and the majority of the inmates are refusing to wear their masks.

“[PPE shortage] was one of our main concerns when this all started,” Captain Julie Villalpando said. “Because there was no PPE. People may want to blame us for not acting fast enough, but there wasn’t any. We didn’t have any for our staff. We didn’t have any for the inmates.”

While inmates are being provided soap, officials admitted they are not being provided hand sanitizer or anything with sixty percent alcohol. “The reason we cannot supply the inmates with hand sanitizer, they will use it to start fires,” Saenz said. “Or they’ll drink it.”

Inmates are provided cleaning supplies to clean their dorm areas. Common areas are cleaned by jail staff once every 12 hours. Once a week, inmates are temporarily moved from a dormitory for staff to do a deep cleaning with sanitizing equipment.

After the first three patients tested positive with COVID, one dorm staged a disturbance causing SWAT to respond. According to officials, jail staff was preparing another round of testing when a number of inmates, who had initially refused, began demanding to be tested immediately.

Those involved blocked windows and cameras and placed mattresses in front of the food window so officers could not make visual contact and made verbal communication difficult. Officers said their attempts to deescalate the situation failed, and they were forced to call SWAT, who specializes in resolving situations of this type.

Saenz said SWAT used “Stinger Grenades,” which contain compacted rubber balls that are released on impact and bounce around; one inmate reported a sore shoulder after diving to the ground, but no other injuries were reported.

According to Saenz, several Texas Department of Corrections inmates were involved in the incident and were well aware of what the grenades did as TDC often uses them to quell riots.

“Those inmates were given plenty of directives in order to comply before our SWAT team ended up having to go into that dorm area,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez said not all of the inmates within the dorm were involved, and staff could not verify their safety due to the blocked visual points. During the disturbance, a couple of the inmates started a fire, which is currently under investigation.

“I think there is a misconception about us; a lot of people think that we don’t care about our inmates or what we do,” Villalpando said. “We’re very passionate about this job because we play many roles just like the officers on the street. We deal with inmates with mental health issues, so we have to learn how to deal with them. We see people at their worst, the worst time of their life, and I think that’s what makes us so good as correctional officers, to us it’s not about the charge. We’re here to take care of them, keep them safe, and get them to court.”

“But we are also disciplinarians,” Villalpando continued. “If they were following the rules, we wouldn’t have a job. A lot of people want to say that we’re lying about not giving the inmates items the need. But they’re here because they broke the law.”