Problem with new hires quitting amid safety concerns highlighted after HCSO deputy was sexually assaulted
Former Harris County Jail nurse expresses safety concerns
A number of safety concerns have surfaced regarding the Baker Street jail. This comes after Monday's brutal beating and sexual assault of a supervisor there. Yet one big issue is the staffing shortage, but sometimes even as quickly as jail employees are hired, they suddenly quit. FOX 26's Damali Keith has more.
HOUSTON - A number of safety concerns have surfaced regarding the Baker Street Jail after Monday’s brutal beating and sexual assault of a supervisor there.
One big issue is the staffing shortage but sometimes even as quickly as jail employees are hired, they suddenly quit. One woman FOX 26 spoke with has been a nurse for 14 years.
RELATED: How did inmate brutally attack, sexually assault sergeant inside Harris County Jail?
She says last year she had the opportunity to come from out of state to accept a nursing spot at the Baker Street Jail, but her new job didn’t last.
"I thought this was my dream job. It’s not my first time being in corrections. I loved the setting in previous locations as a travel nurse, but I learned very fast that it became an unsafe situation," she says.
The former Baker Street Jail nurse, who wanted to remain anonymous, says safety concerns soon surfaced because she says some protective protocols practiced at other jails where she’d worked, didn’t always happen at Baker Street.
"At all times, you would not have a guard and you would be left alone with up to 20, 30 inmates," she said. "There would be fights inside the clinic and there would not be enough guards in the clinic in order to keep an inmate from going after a nurse."
SIGN UP FOR FOX 26 HOUSTON EMAIL ALERTS
She says more than once an inmate had a seizure, but she had to wait minutes for a deputy to escort her to give the inmate care.
"It was kind of a catch 22 for a nurse, you know? We’re jeopardizing our license, but we’re also jeopardizing our lives."
After just three months, she says she quit. Now a year later, in the same jail where she once worked, inmate Jeremiah Williams is now charged with aggravated sexual assault after investigators say he violently beat and sexually assaulted a veteran sheriff’s deputy in her office as he returned from a jail Bible study class.
"It really saddens me because no one deserves that, but I did see it coming."
On Wednesday, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez acknowledged the staffing shortage and other issues in the jail and says they are working to correct them. FOX 26 reached out to County Commissioners regarding the problems at the jail, but they can’t comment due to pending litigation.