By Brennan David
Columbia Daily Tribune
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Columbia police will soon begin taking more than half of suspects under arrest to the Boone County Jail instead of the police department.
The shift in procedure, set to start sometime next month, will affect most people arrested on suspicion of violating state law, patrol Capt. Brad Nelson said. Those arrested on suspicion of violating municipal law will continue to be booked and processed at police headquarters.
The move is in response to an August incident when former Officer Rob Sanders shoved an inmate in a holding cell. The incident resulted in a civil lawsuit that awarded the inmate, Kenneth Baker, with $250,000 to cover medical expenses. The lawsuit alleged that Baker suffered a compression fracture.
Chief Ken Burton at the time said his department should not be in the business of housing inmates. A consultant’s March review of the department backed Burton’s call for a new police headquarters that would not include a jail or holding facilities.
“Since I arrived I said bringing people here is not efficient,” Burton said. “When brining them here we were not monitoring them properly. Officers would bring them, book them, and then leave. The only thing monitoring them was the front desk” through video surveillance. “That’s not good enough.”
Nelson said he is unsure how many inmates are taken daily from the police department’s seven holding cells to the county jail. The county jail’s booking report for yesterday identified 12 inmates booked as a result of a Columbia police arrest.
“Anytime you are north of I-70 it makes more sense to drive straight to the jail,” Nelson said. “It will definitely have a cost reduction. Think about the time it takes an officer and the wear and tear on a vehicle. It allows the officer to get back onto the streets quicker.”
Inmates being held on state arrests must be taken to the county jail to post bond. Booking inmates means that officers have additional contact with the arrested suspects during transfer into the police facility and into the holding cells. That exposes officers to an additional and unnecessary danger, Nelson said.
Holding cells will continue to house suspects when they are not being questioned in interview rooms.
But transports to the county jail could result in a waiting line for booking if police officers all show up at the same time, said jail Chief Warren Brewer.
“It’s not much of a change” for jailers “except we are going to have to learn how to say ‘excuse me.’ It’s going to be a little bit of an inconvenience,” Brewer said of limited space.
It is unknown how often there will be a wait for booking and such problems will have to be “tweaked” along the way, Brewer said. “There is going to be a learning curve for the both of us,” Brewer said.
Copyright 2012 The Columbia Daily Tribune