With the number of COVID-19 cases zooming past 350 in a population of 1,100 inmates and a backed-up sewer system, Cameron County's locked-down Rucker-Carrizales county jail has become a "lepers' colony."
This according to lawyers, probation officers and other officials who have been turned away from its gates.
They were instructed to communicate with their clients or wards through telephones available to inmates withe a charge card purchased at the jail through its commissary.
On Wednesday, Cameron County officials confirmed that 354 inmates have tested positive for COVID-19. The remaining 739 inmates in county jails have been placed into quarantine.
Additionally, 33 staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 and the remaining 45 jailers are in quarantine.
The remaining 739 inmates in county jails have been placed into quarantine.
With the facility in lock down, sources say that the administration cannot find someone to come in and fix the back-up sewer system because they fear infection. These conditions – total isolation, a rampant contagion of CODIV-19, a lack of medical personnel or facilities to treat the growing number of positive cases and the backed-up sewers to add to the misery – may lead to an explosion, they say.
"How are you going to isolate the inmates in the cells," asked a lawyer? "If you make a segregated population and establish a COVID-19 section, how are you going to make sure that you don't include different gang members from teh different gangs like the Valluco, La Eme, El Syndicato, Texas Mafia, etc., in the same section together or with sexual offenders, for example? You'd be asking for trouble."
The lockdown announced yesterday did not mention the size of the problem, only that a few positive cases had been detected. But numerous attorneys and county and state officials who do business with the inmates say that they had been turned away and told it would be in lockdown for at least 15 days.
They said that even if the county was to start liberating non-violent offenders who had not tested positive for the virus, some of them might be asymptomatic and could pose a danger to the community where they will go."
"This situation is going to explode," one said. "It's not a good situation. I can see how this could become a huge liability to the county."