Sacramento jail COVID outbreak could be a ‘death sentence’ for inmates, activists warn
Jael Barnes’ husband, Jamaine Barnes, has been in custody at the Sacramento County Jail since May 2019 awaiting trial as many of his pretrial hearings have been postponed.
His wife says her husband went into the jail with only severe anxiety but has since developed asthma and contracted COVID-19 twice. Jamaine Barnes is among over 70 inmates at both county jail facilities infected with the virus during a COVID-19 outbreak confirmed Oct. 18.
Jael Barnes, who has since joined Decarcerate Sacramento and now works as a pretrial justice organizer for the activist group, says her husband was vaccinated before, but he is sick now struggling with breathing problems from COVID-19. The activist group says county officials need to improve conditions at the jail to prevent another outbreak, and they should again petition the court to release inmates facing charges in non-violent criminal cases.
“The conditions are horrific. I mean, despite what they have told us, they have no real plans to keep these folks safe,” Barnes told reporters during a news conference Tuesday outside the Sacramento County administration building.
She said jail staff go in and out of these jail facilities and could be bringing the infectious virus home to their families or other people they encounter throughout the day.
“If it wasn’t your concern before, it should be now,” Barnes said. “COVID spreads like a wildfire.”
On Tuesday, Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Rodney Grassmann said all sheriff’s staff at the jail facilities are required to adhere to all county COVID health safety protocols. He also said sheriff’s staff are under state public health orders, including mandatory vaccinations for health care, custody and inmate workers or qualified exemptions plus weekly testing.
During an Oct. 22 news conference, Sheriff Scott Jones spoke about the recent jail outbreak. He said all new inmates are tested for COVID-19 and offered the vaccine in exchange for a $20 jail commissary incentive funded by a federal COVID-19 grant.
“At the end of the day, there are a number of inmates that have chosen not to get vaccinated, and it seems to be that this current spike is among that population,” Jones told reporters a few days after the recent outbreak was confirmed. “We’ll continue to ride this out with the measures we have in place, and we’ll see those numbers go down.”
Jones has said he’s vaccinated and encourages others to get the COVID vaccine, including sheriff’s staff, but he said it should be a personal choice whether to get the vaccine. He said staff that work in jail medical units must be vaccinated, or they are transferred to work in other areas of the facility.
Activists say jail population should be reduced
Decarcerate Sacramento says many who have contracted COVID-19 in the recent outbreak were fully vaccinated before becoming infected. The activists say more than 80% of the jail population is in custody awaiting trial, and those facing non-violent charges should be released pending trial.
In a news release this week announcing an inmate’s COVID-related death, Sacramento County Public Health Officer Olivia Kasirye said county health officials were “working closely with Correctional Health staff to conduct contact tracing and mitigate the spread.” She also said quarantine protocols were in place, “and extensive testing is being done.”
Jael Barnes said her husband almost begged jail staff for a COVID-19 test while in an intake pod at the jail before he tested positive. He was then moved to a solitary confinement unit for 24 hours, she said. Then, he was moved to a jail unit with other COVID-infected inmates. She said the infected inmates there are without cleaning products and forced to reuse their masks.
Her husband told her that inmates in his quarantine unit have been denied basic supplies, such as soap and sufficient amounts of toilet paper.
“We’re fighting for our lives in here,” Jamaine Barnes said in a Decarcerate Sacramento news release. “Just because we are in jail doesn’t mean that our well-being is less important than any other human being.”
County health officials have said inmates who test positive for COVID-19, those with symptoms awaiting test results, inmates with no symptoms but who have come into close contact with infected people and new inmates who arrive at the jail facilities are housed in one of four quarantine jail pods in accordance with health safety protocols. The quarantined inmates are placed in separate pods based on those criteria.
Barnes said her 5-year-old son recently told her he hopes his dad doesn’t die.
“Can you all imagine a kid thinking about that? They should be worried about what’s happening at school, who’s going to be on the playground, but my son is worried about if his dad is going to die in there or not,” Barnes told reporters. “I have been in contact with dozens of people on the inside and their families, and they all are scared that this just might be a death sentence.”
Recent COVID outbreak confirmed two weeks ago
On Oct. 22, county health officials announced they were investigating a COVID-19 outbreak at both Sacramento County Jail facilities, where 69 out of 3,202 inmates tested positive for the virus. At the time, health officials said all confirmed COVID-19 cases among inmates in custody involved unvaccinated people.
At the main jail in downtown Sacramento, 32 inmates had tested positive for COVID-19 as of Oct. 20, according to the Sheriff’s Office. There were 37 inmates at Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center near Elk Grove who tested positive for the respiratory disease.
In the following weekly update on Oct. 27, the Sheriff’s Office reported 75 COVID cases were currently active — 34 at the main jail and 41 at RCCC.
County health officials on Monday evening announced that a 76-year-old jail inmate, who was vaccinated against the coronavirus several months ago, died after testing positive for COVID-19 last week. He was being treated for “long term significant and multiple underlying health conditions,” according to a county news release. He was admitted to a hospital Oct. 25 because he had low oxygen levels, health officials said.
He tested positive for COVID-19 at the hospital. Sacramento County Public Health officials say they were notified of the inmate’s death on Monday morning. County officials did not release his name.
The inmate who died was vaccinated in June 2021 while in custody.
Immediately after the inmate tested positive for COVID-19, jail staff began contact tracing and quarantined the unit where the inmate was housed, health officials said. Jail health staff were providing extensive COVID tests of people including the inmates who had contact with the man who died.
William Francis Stevens had been in custody at the Sacramento County Main Jail since December 2019 before he agreed to a plea deal in November 2020. In January, he got COVID-19 in the jail and died Feb. 16. The 53-year-old man was found unresponsive in his cell and died at Sutter Medical Center.
His wife, Jasmine McFadden-Stevens, said her husband died because he was allowed to languish with the virus for more than a month despite repeated requests for medical attention and a previous COVID-19 outbreak at both county jail facilities. She wasn’t able to attend Tuesday’s news conference but wrote a statement that was read to reporters.
“I know for a fact that my husband tested positive and he was not having his medical conditions met in that horrible place,” McFadden-Stevens wrote in her statement. “Just because you’re an inmate in (jail) doesn’t mean that you should not get your medical needs met.”
Group calls for jail population reduction
Khalil Ferguson of the local advocacy group Justice2Jobs said human beings incarcerated at the county jail face deplorable conditions that have only been made worse during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of these inmates do not pose a public safety threat and should be awaiting trial from their homes.
“We know the (county) Board of Supervisors has limited control over the jails, but we are asking them to be creative leaders and advocates,” Ferguson told reporters Tuesday. “This is a public health crisis, and we need all-hands-on-deck. The people inside the jail, their legal counsel, the Sheriff’s Department, the District Attorney and the courts should be working collaboratively to protect the rights and dignity of people awaiting trial during a pandemic.”
Tifanei Ressl-Moyer, an attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and co-founder of Decarcerate Sacramento, said county officials, jail staff and defense attorneys should be working together to protect the rights and dignity of people in jail awaiting trial during a pandemic.
“For years, our county leadership has known of the need to dramatically reduce the Sacramento jail population for the safety and well-being of our community,” Ressl-Moyer said in the activist group’s news release. “The need to reduce the jail population becomes more and more urgent every day.”
This story was originally published November 2, 2021 at 2:22 PM.
