Sheriff's Office Must Change Tactics To Handle Protesters

We've all received the memo informing us that all days off and vacations will be cancelled during the Republican National Convention.

Sheriff Fletcher in Ramsey County is preparing and planning on 3,000 arrests.He has asked their county board for 3.9 million in protester related costs including $550,000 for a possible open-air, fenced detention facility to hold protesters next to the Ramsey County Workhouse; $1.7 million for overtime, and $62,000 for biohazard decontamination equipment. (Source: Star Tribune).

Us? The Hennepin County Board has yet to ask for a convention budget, and the Sheriff's Office has not yet developed one, said Sheriff Rich Stanek. He said he was unaware of protest arrest estimates in Minneapolis.

My concern is less the budget then our policies. The current Sheriff's Office policy of writing a full fledged use of force incident report anytime we touch an inmate will be crippling in a mass arrest situation. Imagine this, a bus with sixty protesters arrives. They refuse to walk and we have to carry them. Now imagine the man hours wasted as multiple detention deputies write individual use of force reports on all sixty inmates! That bus will take hours to be emptied under current policy. Of course if we don't follow Inspector Merkel's memo that requires reports for any physical contact, and an arrestee complains, the staff is subject to discipline.

As I see it, either we had better quadruple the intake staff to accommodate the report writing, or go back to making only a behavior note entry unless directed by a supervisor to write a report. How many times have we been told that the intake video is documentation to protect us? The Sheriff's Office should use it as that, let us quit typing redundant reports, and let us get back to the job of booking in inmates.