Under former Columbus County Sheriff Jody Greene, the supervision at the Whiteville jail was so lax that a man who had told authorities he faced a safety threat in his assigned pod was beaten nearly to death without detention officers taking any steps to intervene, a newly filed federal lawsuit alleges.
Filed in the U.S. District Court in North Carolina’s Eastern District, the lawsuit echoes accusations made by District Attorney Jon David in his petitions last year to have Greene removed from office for misconduct. Citing the same beating, David said Greene “failed to properly supervise officers” and “permitted dangerous, and potentially deadly conditions to exist” in the jail. At David’s request, the State Bureau of Investigation looked into the assault and charged four people with attempted murder.
The new lawsuit provides more detail about conditions inside the jail, asserting there was a “long-standing and well-established practice” of housing gang members together, regardless of their affiliations, and then providing no meaningful oversight. Those actions showed “a flagrant disregard for inmate safety and the legal requirements for North Carolina detention facilities,” wrote Paul Smith and Brad Bannon, attorneys with the firm Patterson Harkavy, who represent Joshua Johnson, the man who was attacked.
Read more from the Border Belt Independent: Columbus County jail beating highlights bigger supervision lapses, lawsuit says
Nikolai Mather: Sarah and Carli, thank you for joining me. So the State Bureau of Investigation has already brought attempted murder charges against Joshua Johnson's attackers. Sarah, can you share a bit about this new civil suit?
Sarah Nagem: The civil suit alleges more broadly that there is a history of supervision lapses at the Columbus County Detention Center. It says that on the day Joshua was beaten that detention officers hadn't done any supervision rounds since they started their shift at 7 a.m. that morning. It also alleges that they missed hours and hours of rounds the previous two days before the attack. It's filed against Jodie Green, who is the target of a federal investigation and former sheriff of Columbus County. It is filed against a detention officer, a supervisor at the jail and also current Sheriff Bill Rodgers.
NM: So, according to your investigation, inspectors repeatedly cited the jail for failing to meet surveillance requirements. Carli, why didn't they fix these issues right away?
Carlie Brosseau: When inspectors identify a supervision problem or any problem, the jail is tasked with writing a corrective action plan. And that's something that the inspectors then will review. According to a recent Disability Rights North Carolina report, most of the time, those proposed plans are accepted. And not infrequently, jails are subsequently cited for the same or similar problems. They also wrote in that report that there just aren't very many inspectors and they have to do twice yearly inspections on the jails across the state of North Carolina. So that's a huge task.
NM: The sheriff's office said additional funding for a new camera system will fix these issues. But there's a human element to these problems, too. Could you speak to that, Sarah?
SN: As one of Joshua's attorneys said to me, you can throw money at a problem. But it doesn't mean that problem is going to be fixed if there isn't some sort of change in behavior, right? So assuming that the surveillance video was working that day in the control room, what would have happened that detention officers didn't come into that pod to help Joshua Johnson? Either nobody was monitoring the screens, or they saw what was happening, and nobody went in to intervene. So again, it's not just about technology, right?
CB: To be clear, we don't know for sure whether the video was working that day, and people weren't watching it or deciding not to intervene. You can see in the past inspection reports that there have been problems with that system. But we're not sure in this instance what the correct scenario was.
NM: Incarcerated people are notoriously hard for reporters to reach. Carli, you've covered Columbus County prisons before — how did this dynamic impact your reporting?
CB: Well, for quite a while we have been trying to reach Joshua Johnson. And we did not succeed in reaching him. And we have not yet spoken with him. Although we have spoken with his attorneys. In the past, I have spent quite a bit of time trying to speak with incarcerated people in Columbus County, reaching out via the informal networks and also through letters sent to the jail. And it's difficult, it's tough, partly because there's, you know, a lot of turnover. And you're relying on corrections officers to pass along the mail, then you're also dealing with communication systems at jails that inmates often have to pay for, or that you have to be put on a particular list. So it is definitely difficult to communicate with people who were in the jail and often who have recently been in the jail.
NM: Where can our listeners find your work?
CB: So The Assembly and The Border Belt Independent have together been investigating a lot of issues related to the sheriff's office under the former leadership of Jody Greene. And so we're interested in all kinds of issues, whether it's the jail, or otherwise. That's an ongoing reporting project. This story about the jail, you can find on the Border Belt Independent site.
NM: Well, thanks both y'all so much for joining me today and answering some of my questions.
CB: Thank you so much!
