Editorial: County jail woes go past reading calendar dates

So now somebody at the jail is lying? Or can they just not read a calendar? We don't use that word lightly. But somebody connected to the Curry County jail may have stretched the truth when our newspaper asked for a report detailing a June 27 fight there between two inmates.

Documents the county released Thursday show an investigation into the fight began June 28. On June 29 the county was threatened with a tort claim, or lawsuit.

An email from County Attorney Steve Doerr last month denied our request to get a copy of this investigative report. The reason stated was because it was requested "with regard to the Tort Claims Notice" and therefore exempt from public inspection because of "attorney/client privilege."

Now, Doerr has released the report and it shows it was started before the county was served with the tort claim notice — which means it was not protected by attorney/client privilege after all.

So how did jail Administrator Gerry Billy ask for the investigative report — according to the attorney's email — "for purposes of providing information to the County's lawyer with regard to the Tort Claims Notice," when the tort claim notice hadn't been received?

Last week, Doerr did not explain exactly why he decided to release the report after he explained the "attorney/client privilege" denial in a July 27 letter.

He said only that he had received additional information.

We suspect the added information surfaced because of a different CNJ request for documents, this time for copies of all emails related to the jail fight. One of those emails, from jail investigator Keith Farkas to County Manager Lance Pyle, dated the same day the county received notice of the lawsuit, stated, in part: "I am finishing up the investigation of the incident."

Doerr may have realized, with good reason, that we would be asking how that investigative report could be almost finished the same day Farkas was asked to get it started.

All we really know is Doerr originally stated Billy told him a report started June 28 was in response to a tort claim the county did not receive until June 29.

Billy referred questions on the topic to Doerr, who responded:

"In my previous correspondence to you, I told you that the documents were exempt from inspection under the Inspection of Public Records Act based upon information I had been given. Subsequently, I was provided with new additional information that was not made available to me earlier. Upon receipt of that additional information and after consultation with my client, the decision was made to release the documents to you."

Farkas had a more interesting answer: Billy, he said, did not initially assign the investigation to him; the assignment came from Tori Sandoval, a former interim jail administrator.

County Commissioner Robert Sandoval said he smells "a cover-up" when we asked him about the conflicting dates.

He is not alone.

At least the jail report is now public information and was summarized in Friday's newspaper. It provides plenty of explanation for why some county officials didn't want it released to the public: It showed a county jail so unorganized its employees didn't even notice the fight among inmates that lasted 15 or 20 minutes. They also failed to realize they'd placed a murder suspect next to the deceased victim's brother, with a broom handle accessible as a weapon.

We've known about the jail's problems for years. They are well documented across the state and nation. But the delayed release of this latest report tells us somebody is willing to fabricate information in an apparent effort to delay or prevent the public from learning details about this dangerous, disastrous institution.

Either that or maybe we should believe they can't read a calendar.

Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Clovis Media Inc. editorial board, which includes Publisher Ray Sullivan and Editor David Stevens.