{"id":797591,"date":"2019-07-12T15:25:03","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T21:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=368768"},"modified":"2019-07-12T15:25:03","modified_gmt":"2019-07-12T21:25:03","slug":"summit-county-officials-seek-solutions-to-curb-violence-against-jail-deputies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/summit-county-officials-seek-solutions-to-curb-violence-against-jail-deputies\/","title":{"rendered":"Summit County officials seek solutions to curb violence against jail deputies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
One of the holding cells at the Summit County Detentions Facility in Breckenridge.<\/strong>
Hugh Carey \/ Summit Daily<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 Summit County officials are looking for ways to reduce the number of inmate assaults on deputies at the Summit County Detentions Facility after an uptick in attacks in recent months.<\/p>\n

As law enforcement and judicial districts continue efforts to prevent violence against patrol deputies across the county, the discussion has evolved to include employees at jails. This year at the Summit jail, there have been at least three instances of assaults, primarily dealing with inmates spitting into the faces of detentions deputies. District Attorney Bruce Brown said he\u2019s hoping to shine a light on the difficulties of working at the jail and find a way to deter inmates from committing future assaults.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk a lot about patrol officers being attacked, particularly by those people that cause them injury, and how it\u2019s important justice be given to those officers by putting the responsible men and women behind bars,\u201d Brown said. \u201cNow, at the place where they are behind bars, they\u2019re still targeting officers and doing it in a fashion that is vulgar, disgusting and would be offensive to any person. \u2026 I think it brings on a different chapter in the same story, that we need to protect our officers by turning our attention to why people are literally spitting in the faces of the people who are there to protect them.\u201d<\/p>\n

While spitting may not seem like an overly serious crime on the surface, the Colorado Revised Statutes include widespread protections for emergency workers \u2014 including detentions employees \u2014 to help prevent the purposeful spread of hazardous materials and communicable diseases. Spitting on a jail deputy is considered a class 4 felony assault and is punishable by up to six years in prison with probation eligibility. An attempted assault on a jail deputy is punishable by up to three years in prison.<\/p>\n

Brown noted that perpetrators of assaults on jail deputies generally end up pleading guilty to felony attempted assault charges and receive at least some additional jail time. With limited room to strengthen penalties, Brown is hoping that opening up the discussion to stakeholders and members of the public \u2014 and making it clear to inmates that spitting could mean an additional prison sentence \u2014 will help to curb the behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was surprised when I learned that in the recent months there were three separate incidences where jail staff had been spat upon by inmates,\u201d Brown said. \u201cIn my tenure as district attorney, I have seen these occur from time to time, but this appeared to be an unusual cluster of events. Based upon that, I wanted to make sure if there was anything we could do to deter people from engaging in this disgusting behavior, that we take those steps to protect jail staff. \u2026 I don\u2019t have a quick and easy answer. I\u2019ve spoken to the sheriff in Eagle and Summit, and we\u2019ve agreed this is a good time to engage in discussions to craft a solution to deter that behavior or punish it differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue began to surface in January, when a jail deputy was forced to go to St. Anthony Summit Medical Center for medical clearance after an inmate spit in the deputy\u2019s eyes and mouth. Similar incidents took place in March and earlier this month. It appears the same deputy was assaulted in each incident based on reports provided by the District Attorney\u2019s Office. <\/p>\n

\u201cAssaults in the jail are always a concern of mine,\u201d Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons said. \u201cWe continually train our staff to prevent assaults, but they\u2019re a regular occurrence.\u201d<\/p>\n

FitzSimons continued to say that while assaults are a somewhat inevitable happening in a jail setting, he believes the number of incidents could be reduced with a more robust staff. The jail is fully staffed but not \u201cproperly staffed,\u201d said FitzSimons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI keep saying we need more staff and that court security needs more staff to secure the justice center,\u201d FitzSimons said. \u201cAn understaffed facility is more vulnerable to assaults.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether the solution is potential changes to punishments, additional staffing at the jail, better efforts to educate inmates on the repercussions or something else, officials have been clear they want to take their time to examine the issue to come up with a productive answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want a thoughtful engagement of stakeholders to see if there\u2019s something proactive that can be done to protect the deputies,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThat\u2019s where the discussion is beginning. We don\u2019t want any knee-jerk reactions.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the holding cells at the Summit County Detentions Facility in Breckenridge.Hugh Carey \/ Summit Daily BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 Summit County officials are looking for ways to reduce the number of inmate assaults on deputies at the Summit County Detentions Facility after an uptick in attacks in recent months. As law enforcement and judicial districts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-797591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 21:39:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}