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HARRIS COUNTY, Texas – Last year, 25 inmates died in the Harris County Jail the most inmate deaths in a decade. Just last month, four more deaths.
Two former Harris County Jail employees, who resigned from their positions, spoke to us anonymously.
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One, who we will call ‘Sandy,’ worked at the jail for many years under many different sheriffs.
“That’s a good way to put it, under many different sheriffs,” Sandy told us.
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Another former jail employee worked there for several years. We will call her ‘Mary.’
They were not terminated, both chose to leave.
We asked Mary why she chose to resign.
“It was so unsafe. It was very toxic,” she said.
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Sandy told us resigning was something she felt she had to do.
“It’s devastating. I would probably say this is what divorce feels like,” Sandy said. “It was not an option, and now I feel bad for the people who are left other employees.”
We asked both what would someone see if they walked into the jail unannounced.
“Drugs are rampant,” said Mary. “They would see gang initiations. They would see people being rolled out, they call it beaten to a bloody pulp.”
“When you come into the jail, there’s an expectation that you will be welcomed through violence,” Sandy said.
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In a highly publicized attack last year, a sergeant was raped and beaten in her office.
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“After the sergeant was brutally raped and beaten, we expected something different to happen. It never did,’ said Sandy.
Mary says she was stalked by an inmate.
“He waited for me and masturbated in front of me,” she said. “This is an inmate in the jail that is supposed to be escorted. He was not escorted, he was unaccounted for. I screamed no one was around, he ran off.”
“Everyone in that jail should be escorted, including me,” Sandy said. “No one is escorted, not even volunteers are escorted.”
Safety, overcrowding concerns at Harris County Jail
A historic number of deaths set off safety concerns at the Harris County Jail.
“Mind you these things happened before the sergeant was assaulted, so to scream out and say, do something, please do something, because something worse is going to happen than this,” said Mary. “And for it to finally happen, that’s not, and I told you, so that you want to have.”
The jail is dealing with record-breaking deaths.
“You’ve got some suicides. You’ve got some homicides. You’ve got neglect,” said Sandy.
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The county is spending tens of millions of dollars transferring inmates from Harris County to private facilities in Louisiana and west Texas.
“They look at the ones causing the least amount of problems within the jail,” said Mary. “So, the ones with the better behavior are the ones that are shipped out.”
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These employees say disabled older inmates and veterans are the most often victimized and beaten.
“If they’re really concerned about the deaths that are happening, if they’re really concerned about the people that are there, and what they’re going through, if they’re really concerned about their staff, they’re going to have to look at themselves,” Sandy said.
“There has to be changes from the top down, there has to be someone that actually cares about the employees and the inmates that are there,” said Mary.
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We first reached out to the Harris County Sheriffs Office a week ago asking for a response.
We requested an interview with Sheriff Ed Gonzalez. We specifically asked about what the two employees told us.
We heard nothing back, but silence.
