AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH:LUCIO PLAYED WITH INMATES' LIVES

By Derick Garcia
KVEO 23

CAMERON COUNTY, Texas — Newly obtained documents confirmed the Cameron County Sheriff’s Office knew of a potential COVID-19 outbreak a full two weeks before placing all jails on lockdown.

Texas Commission on Jail Standards released documents to CBS4/LOCAL 23 News, showing on July 1, 2020, Carrizalez-Rucker Detention Center requested help from Texas Department of Emergency Management. The request urged TDEM to deploy a Quick Reaction Force to the facility to detect and contain the outbreak. On July 2, 37 jailers and 47 inmates had tested positive for the potentially deadly virus.

Email correspondence between TCJS and TDEM also questioned the need to deploy a team to conduct mass testing on inmates and jail staff. TCJS Executive Director Brandon Wood wrote on July 2 “Let us find out if they need this, they did a bunch of testing on their own already.”

The testing, according to Wood, was a mix of testing conducted at Carrizalez-Rucker, including county-funded tests and state-funded nasal swab tests.

The time between July 2 and election day shows the cases only increased. TCJS released daily breakdowns of cases confirmed, cases pending, quarantined/isolated inmates, and jail staff.

In the two weeks leading up to election day, cases nearly doubled from 47 to 92 inmates.

On July 15th, less than 24 hours after Sheriff Omar Lucio lost his primary run-off race, cases spiked to 354 confirmed cases with 739 inmates quarantined or isolated.Only then did the county jails go on lockdown. In an email to district court employees, Lt. Joe Elizardi requested “all court proceedings be rescheduled until after July 31, 2020, which will put us within the quarantine period required."

To read rest of story, click on link:

https://www.valleycentral.com/news/local-news/jail-outbreak-sheriffs-dept-knew-of-cases-two-weeks-before-placing-the-jails-on-lockdown/”