Former Jail Employees Describe Dangerous Working Conditions

Former Oklahoma County Detention Center employees said they regularly feared for their lives while reporting to a job paying between $12 and $14 an hour inside jail walls.   

News 9 talked with seven former detention officers Monday. They asked for their identities to be concealed but provided documentation showing their previous employment at the detention center.

“I was roped into working two to three floors by myself,” detention officer ‘one’ said. “That’s how short staffed we were.”

They said at times they were forced to work alone in pods of inmates of the opposite sex.

“In one situation there was only six people in the jail and that’s from receiving all the way up to 13 floors. A total of six,” detention officer ‘four’ said.

Officers said the 13-floor facility is designed for seven staff members on each floor. They said the structurally deficient facility adds to the strain of staffing shortages.

“In certain situations, nobody can get to you and there’s always just one working elevator,” detention officer ‘two’ said. “So, if you’re getting attacked by an inmate you better know how to defend yourself or you’re going to have to drop to the ground to be in the fetal position until help arrives.”

One officer said at times she was sent on rounds without a radio. “you just pray that camera ops are watching the camera,” she said.

The former officers said they watched in horror as their former colleague was held hostage on the tenth floor of the facility Saturday.

“Maybe they’re short staffed, but for him to go in there by his self it really sucked. He should’ve had another officer with him. It just hurt me that I couldn’t be there to help him,” officer ‘one’ said.

“I wanted to go in and help. I thought they were going to kill him,” officer ‘three’ said.

“I was furious, because six months ago, eight months ago, a year ago, that could have been me. It could have been my wife. My wife worked there,” officer ‘five’ said.

Two former employees said it’s not the first time jail staff have been held hostage in the facility over the past year.

“There was another inmate chasing us with a hunting knife trying to stab us,” officer ‘two’ said describing an incident on the 13th floor housing the medical staff over the summer.

“They don’t understand this is real life for us,” an officer said.

“I ended up in the hospital with a concussion because of being attacked so much by an inmate,” detention officer ‘three’ said remembering earning $12.60 an hour at the time.

News 9 reached out to the Oklahoma County Detention Center with the former officer’s concerns but did not hear back.

In December, News 9 talked with jail CEO Greg Williams about dangerously low staffing conditions.

“Of course, you get that perception, you get that feeling when you walk around there’s not as much staff as you’d like to see, so you kind of get the feeling that it’s more dangerous than what it was, but really, I haven’t seen the data that that would support that,” Williams said December 16.

Related: Low Staffing, Escape Attempts & Over Crowding Plague Oklahoma County Jail

Since that interview, five inmates have died and in January a violent inmate escaped through an open garage door.

“I don’t feel like the jail should be running right now,” detention officer ‘one’ said. “It’s never going to be fully staffed because of the pay, the way the employees are treated, they’re not wanting to stay.”