4 days ago
Why is a grand jury asking for e-cigarettes not to be sold at the Walker County Jail anymore?
JASPER, Ala. (WIAT) — As a grand jury made the decision to indict Walker County Sheriff Nick Smith on charges of hiring uncertified personnel as deputies within his department, the group also took it on themselves to weigh in on an unrelated matter.
While going through recommendations recently compiled by the grand jury, District Attorney Bill Adair read off one particular line regarding the Walker County Jail.
'Due to the number of recent arson charges attributed to e-cigarette misuse by inmates in the Walker County Jail, e-cigarettes pose a safety risk to the staff and inmates of the Walker County Jail,' Adair said during a press conference Tuesday morning. 'The grand jury recommends that e-cigarette sales to inmates at the Walker County Jail be discontinued and a safe alternative be substituted.'
Chris Uptain, chief of the Jasper Fire & Rescue, said there have been at least two fires reported at the Walker County Jail within the last year that were caused by e-cigarettes. He didn't have a number for any fires reported last year.
On November 17, 2021, Joe Brandon Thornton escaped from the Walker County Jail after he intentionally set a blanket on fire using a vape in his cell. He was caught two days later.
Earlier this year on Jan. 21, another fire was reported at the jail. Using his personal Facebook profile, Smith said the fire was the result of a mattress that had caught on fire, although he didn't specify if it was caused by an e-cigarette.
'Many times, inmates will disassemble electrical components inside their cell to do this,' Smith wrote. 'Once the officer noticed the smoke they quickly evacuated the dorm and got all inmates to safety.'
According to The Daily Mountain Eagle, the Walker County Commission was set to take up a motion to ban e-cigarettes at county facilities, but the issue was tabled in February after Smith brought up how e-cigarette sales from inmates alone generated an estimated $20,000 per month for the department.
'The store sales pay $120,000 per year for radios for us to communicate with, because the county did not go to the digital system when everyone was supposed to go to the digital radios many years ago,' Smith said. 'The Walker County Commission did not allocate funds for those purchases in our budget. In fact, the Walker County Commission has not purchased patrol cars for the sheriff's department since 2014. Those funds are paid through the jail store.'
In the report, Smith was quoted as telling the commission that e-cigarettes had been sold at the jail for over a decade and that money generated from them went toward things like patrol cars, radios, bulletproof vests and more.
The commission eventually passed a resolution banning e-cigarettes from being smoked inside all county buildings. However, the Walker County Jail was allowed to continue selling them, as long as inmates smoked outside.
Elsewhere, e-cigarettes have presented unique problems in jail. In 2019, inmates at the Etowah County Jail used batteries and wires from e-cigarettes to burn a hole in a cell window. As a result, e-cigarettes were banned at the jail for 72 hours.
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