REALITY CHECK: How Inmates are Accidentally Released from Metro Jail

Описание: YOUR DESCRIPTION HAS REACHED THE LIMIT OF CHARACTERS ALLOWED AND WAS CUT. MOBILE, Ala. (WPMI) Local 15 News exclusively reported in December how an inmate from Mobile Metro Jail was released by mistake. It was a simple clerical error, and the inmate turned himself in the day after our report aired. But we wanted to know how mistakes like that could happen in the first place.

Who knew just taking a mugshot could be so difficult? Corrections officers found out when 21- year-old Angelo Massey was brought in after allegedly breaking into cars on South's campus last month. Surveillance footage released to Local 15 News shows Massey is so disorderly, officers can't even take his picture. From the moment campus police brought him to intake, he was belligerent, yelling things like, "Is that Uncle Bookie? Call mamma with the money so we can get the f** home." And he was screaming at officers, telling one he was a, "dirty a** redneck," then later screaming, "Lawsuit! Can you hear lawsuit!"

Massey is just one example.

"This is one of the most hostile work environments in Mobile County," said Warden Trey Oliver.

Oliver says routinely, officers are cussed out, spit on, bit, and even have feces and other bodily fluids thrown at them.

"The stress here is extremely high," said Oliver.

The entire booking process starts at intake where suspects are searched, photographed and scanned to see if they're a repeat customer. A warrant search also begins, which includes physically sending a fax to the city to check for other charges.

"We are not state of the art here," said Oliver. "We house all the inmates for all the jurisdictions. We are not on one system. We are not linked on to one data base."

DNA is collected in felony cases. Charges are explained. Paperwork filled out. And it's all done with the department understaffed, three to four officers per shift, in a tiny space built for a jail half its size. The day Local 15 was there, 88 people were booked into Metro.

It was during this process in December a mistake was made that allowed inmate Kortney Gordon to walk out of the jail a free man. The warden says a distracted corrections officer didn't put in the computer that Gordon was to be held for drug charges in another county.

"You want to get every detail right, every time. You don't want any phones ringing. You don't want to have to worry about another computer screen. You don't want to have to worry about people coming to the window. or asking questions, but that's not reality," said Oliver.

The warden says five inmates were accidentally released in 2013 and 2014. All the mistakes that led to those releases were clerical in nature, he says, and none of the inmates released were dangerous felons, including Gordon.

"That particular case was the worst case where the individual actually made it off the property," said Oliver.

"What is the department doing to address those concerns?" asked Ramey.

"Well, there's a multitude of issues, obviously," replied Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran.

One of those problems is technology. Cochran says the department has invested in technology at the jail, like adding an automated phone system to decrease the amount of calls corrections officers have to field while managing inmates. But he says getting every municipality in the county that the jail serves to use the same software systems talk to one another remains a challenge.

"Every municipality has their own warrants and every county has their own warrants, and then the state has their warrants. So we're trying to integrate," said Cochran.

One area that has not been addressed, he says, is funding for more staff.