Ok, with everything that’s going on now a days, I’m not surprised that these issues are starting to surface inside the jails/institutions. This particular issue could have been avoided should they had a well trained CERT/SORT team or Corrections Tactical Operarions team of some sort. Now, I’m not familiar with Ramsey County Sheriff's Office so I don’t know if they have one or not, but it is apparent that they did not use it in this case. Individuals like this former officer should be assigned to the tactical team.
This individual should have been categorized as a high risk, high profile, high value inmate....all three! If you have a trained team, and I mean TRAINED!!!!! Then color & gender of the inmate does not matter. All movement to and from this inmates cell should be conducted by this team and this team ONLY! This would reduce any issues because should there be any issues this team should be able to handle it. “If” there is any negative issues on the part of the officers, you know where to start your investigation. But, being that these officers are well trained, there shouldn’t be any issues.
By being well trained, their professional demeanor and skills should show and the department would not have to go through any legal litigation issues nor injuries to anyone or at the very least significantly reduce it. This would also free up line staff to continue to do their daily duties.
They would not be in this legal issue right now. This is why we offer the training and courses that we do and why we train our students to the high standards and tempo that we do!
I urge all command staff in the jails, prisons and institutions to look at their tactical team and invest in professional training for their team. Hand me down training with all of what’s going on is going to put your department in a predicament of possible “cultural” dilemmas. By “cultural dilemmas” we mean, that if the CERT team has a culture of being heavy handed (for example), if you continue passing on that same style of training, nothing is going to change or improve. You have to bring in someone from the outside with updated ideas and training to ensure professional standards are kept and passed on.
Be safe everyone and we hope to see you all at any of our courses in the near future! Be safe!
Chief!
