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'Life Goes On' At County Jail

Tribune photo by RAY REYES

Inmates make phone calls at the Orient Road Jail.

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By RAY REYES | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 6, 2008

Updated: 03/06/2008 09:48 pm

TAMPA - The booking area of Orient Road Jail is as cavernous as an airport terminal.

In a steady stream, first-timers and repeat offenders check in. They bring the clothes they wore and the items carried in their pockets or purses before their freedom was muffled by the sound of clinking handcuffs.

Still, most pass through the sally port's doors bearing baggage. A few stumble under the influence of drugs or alcohol; others sway with emotion.

They weep or rage, sit dazed or stand defiantly. Some are embarrassed, others apologetic. All march to the doldrums of being arrested then processed in central booking.

"They come in normally either sad upset or mad upset," Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office Capt. Anne Herman said.

This is the atmosphere of Orient Road Jail, which, because of recent well-publicized accounts regarding detention deputies' treatment of inmates, has earned a notorious reputation across the country.

Here, in central booking, is where quadriplegic Brian Sterner was shown on a jail video being dumped from his wheelchair by former Detention Deputy Charlette Marshall-Jones.

This large room, ringed with holding cells and different stations for fingerprinting, medical screenings and mug shot booths, is where a former inmate says a deputy broke her arm and another says she was pulled by the hair and slammed to the ground.

Former inmates have retained a lawyer. Videos of Orient Road Jail deputies restraining inmates have cropped up on television stations and the Internet. People booked into the jail Wednesday have heard the stories and seen the videos.

"They're cruel; they're mean," Terry Barnett, 21, arrested on fraud and drug charges, said of jail deputies. "They're disrespectful. This jail is treating people wrong."

Amidst the storm of criticism, jail officials unlocked the doors Wednesday night for The Tampa Tribune and News Channel 8, offering a peek beyond the keyhole into central booking. Early in the evening, despite friction between a few of the arrestees, it appeared normal and relatively quiet.

Not that jailers wanted to dwell on the calm.

"If you say the Q-word," said Herman, who oversees inmate processing, "you'll jinx us."

'Looking Out For Me'

Deputy Glen Cloversettle's assignment during his 12-hour shift Wednesday was to pat down arrivals, checking for any hazardous items, drugs and weapons.

Other than the officer who arrested them, a detention deputy such as Cloversettle is the first person an inmate will see when he or she enters the booking area. The arrestees are led to a counter where they relinquish their possessions. The handcuffs come off. So do the jewelry, the belts and the shoes.

Cloversettle said he and his colleagues simply do their jobs, despite what people think of the jail. The deputy said he tries to empathize with the inmates.

"They're agitated and don't want to be here," Cloversettle said. "Nobody wants to be arrested, and no one wants to be in jail."

Some, like Donald Sword, look like college students, clean-cut and dressed for a night on the town. Sword, 22, arrested on forgery charges, said he expected to post bail in a few hours. Meanwhile, he planned to keep a low profile.

"I didn't come into this place looking for trouble," Sword said. "I'm going to mind my own business. If I get out, I get out. If I don't, I don't."

Others, like Kevin Ray, 24, are haggard, with disheveled hair and stains on their clothes. Ray, arrested for driving with a suspended license and operating an unregistered vehicle, said he will follow Sword's lead.

"I'm looking out for me," Ray said. "I'm on guard. But that's in any jail you go to."

On a typical night, there are six deputies in central booking and about 70 inmates, Herman said.

The intake desk can get backed up, but the most crowded area is the middle of the room where a chest-high wall holds an array of eight telephones. Inmates can make unlimited local calls, Herman said. The lines to the phones are as long as those found in a bank.

After the pat-down, inmates are questioned by a booking clerk, who asks them about next of kin, distinguishing scars or tattoos and, in some cases, gang affiliation. The inmates then are shepherded to different stations to get fingerprinted, photographed and screened for health problems.

After completing these steps, they wait for the phone, for a friend or relative to bail them out, for a visit to another desk where they will be given the orange jumpsuits that show they are in for more than a couple of hours.

The average stay is 18 days, Herman said, and some are in jail for several years awaiting trial. The shortest time an inmate is held in the booking area is about four hours.

Rows of seats beyond the wall of telephones are where inmates can ride out the time. The restrooms are locked, and deputies must open the doors for them. They are given a sandwich to nibble on every three hours. They sleep or they make small talk.

There is one television set. It plays an instructional video about booking procedures and loops over and over and over. It ends with an authoritative but anonymous voice that says:

"We're here to do our job as professionally and thoroughly as possible. The rest is up to you."

'I've Got To Admit, This Is Cool'

The idea of an open booking area that provides a limited amount of freedom allows inmates to feel a sense of normalcy, Herman said.

Sword, who was booked into Orient Road Jail for the first time Wednesday, was impressed with central booking.

"I've got to admit, this is cool," he said. "Very cool."

When it opened in 1990, the open booking area was one of the jail's innovations, Herman said. An array of personalities, in different emotional states, mix in central booking, but they all have one thing in common.

The types of people that are in the jail are not the most compliant, Herman said.

Mary Anna Lowry and Gina Bednar Summers, both 45, traded insults and called each other names. Guards told them more than once to calm down. The deputies raised their voices, but nothing else.

Detention deputies must have compassion, but they also have to show firmness and authority, Herman said. If not, inmates will take advantage of them.

The women eventually were placed in separate holding cells to cool off the same cells with the large windows where several inmates recently said they were roughed up by guards.

Herman said the highly-publicized videos of guards restraining inmates do not show the entire picture.

"It might be the fifth time [the deputies] talked to that person," Herman said. "But on the video, you only see them talk to them once."

They Keep Coming Through The Door

Booking clerk Georgette Wallace read the litany of charges that she and her co-workers had documented in one hour: violation of probation, possession of cocaine, driving under the influence, cultivation of marijuana, domestic violence, fraud, forgery, failure to complete community service.

An average night, Cpl. Dawn Bryant said.

"There's nights where everybody is congenial," she said. "And we can have a night when everybody wants to fight. It depends on the moon. It's very erratic and sporadic."

At the front desk, more inmates were arriving in the terminal-size building. They turn in their personal items, take off accessories and submit to a pat-down. They then wait for their departure time.

Cloversettle, the intake deputy, still had about 10 hours to go on his shift.

About 200 inmates are booked each day. Recently, 305 came in during a 24-hour period.

"Life goes on," Cloversettle said. "They still keep coming through the door."

Tonight at 6, News Channel 8 reporter Samara Sodos takes viewers inside the Orient Road Jail.

Reporter Ray Reyes can be reached at (813) 259-7920 or rreyes@tampatrib.com.

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