Inmate Causes Over $25K in Damages to Skagit County Jail

Skagit County, WA – An Inmate at the Skagit County Jail caused over $25,000 in damages to a pod at the jail last week.

According to a release from Skagit County Sheriff’s Office Chief of Corrections Charles Wend, the incident occurred around 5:30 p.m. on Monday, December 12th, 2016.

Wend said, an inmate in the 10-cell, maximum security pod became enraged and kicked loose a metal stool that had been bolted into the concrete.  The inmate then took the stool, which weighed around 35 pounds and cracked reinforced  windows and broke off sprinkler heads, flooding the pod.  The pod was housing twelve or thirteen inmates at the time of the incident.

The Skagit County Jail’s Crisis Response Team (CRT) was called and equipped themselves to safely enter the pod and gain control of the inmate.  The inmate ended up surrendering to the  Crisis Response team without incident after about an hour without any injuries to anyone involved.

The damage put the pod out of service until repairs could be made, which could take several weeks, said Wend.

Unfortunately,  a handful of non violent  inmates had to be released early so jail staff  could transfer the maximum security inmates into other areas of the jail. Since the incident,  several suspects arrested for crimes by local Police Officers have had to be “booked and released” due to a lack of space to house them  in the current  jail.

The new Skagit County Jail should be opening in mid 2017,  more than doubling the amount of available space for inmates.