SARASOTA – Confined to their jail cells. Not knowing the full extent of the outbreak. Inmates at the Sarasota County Jail say their safety is being disregarded.
“We don’t know what’s going on, and I feel like we should have the right to know for our health. And so, we can better so we can better protect ourselves if they are going to protect us,” said an inmate at the Sarasota County Jail.
This man asked to remain anonymous due to concerns of retaliation. He says not all inmates have been tested, only those with symptoms. Inmates are given two cloth masks and are in charge of disinfecting their jail pods twice a day.
Yet The Sheriff’s Office has confirmed 107 inmates have tested positive. That’s 54 new cases since last week.
“We tried having the mask on all day, but it just doesn’t work,” he said. “It’s uncomfortable to just be sitting around we’re in a closed quarter area where there’s no way we can stay six feet apart from each other when you’ve got over 24 inmates in a cell.”
Hygiene concerns go beyond COVID. The inmate says his first floor pod is facing plumbing issues causing raw sewage to comeback up the pipes flooding some of the cells.
“When I first came in the cell that they left it flooded overnight,” he said. “The smell of the urine and manure was on the floor for an overnight process,”
As cases continue to increase, he says all inmates are under a 31 day quarantine. Operations like laundry have shut down, and workers are now the ones are serving inmates food. Raising suspicion — the outbreak could be worse than we’re being told.
“We know that something is going on. Some of us have health conditions some of us are old so we wanted to know what was going on about that,” the inmate said.
A spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office released the following to SNN “The correctional facility has had 107 positive cases since the beginning of the pandemic on March 13”…. and “there is no issues with flooding on the first floor of the correctional facility.”
SNN has reached out to the sheriff’s office with additional questions regarding these claims and have yet to hear back. We’ll update you as this story continues to develop.