By Lacie Morrison
lmorrison@mineralwellsindex.com
When the riot erupted inside Corrections Corporation of America’s pre-parole facility in August, local law enforcement responded in force and to the tune of approximately $2,200.
Both the Mineral Wells Police Department and the Palo Pinto County Sheriff’s Department have submitted requests to CCA, asking for reimbursement for their officers’ overtime as well as the damage to a police patrol car.
Mineral Wells Police Chief Jerry White said they are requesting reimbursement for 42 hours and 36 minutes of overtime that were accrued between the additional dispatcher and 14 officers that were called in to assist. The request for reimbursement for personnel totaled $1,543.36.
In addition to overtime, the MWPD also replaced a rear window that was shattered by debris flung over the perimeter fence. The damage to the window totaled $260.
“The last time we assisted on a riot in 2005, they reimbursed us,” said White. “They realize it costs the people [when they respond].”
The previous riot resulted in a reimbursement request for $1,780.85, he noted. “When we had to assist in ’05, they let us know then that any costs incurred, they’d reimburse us.”
Palo Pinto County Sheriff Ira Mercer confirmed that his department also issued a request for reimbursement for expenses incurred by his off-duty officers. He said he learned of the reimbursement through the police department and submitted his own request for expenses.
“We didn’t submit a reimbursement request in ’05,” Mercer said. “We didn’t have to pay deputies overtime.”
In his itemized request, Mercer didn’t request reimbursement for his time, the chief deputy and four deputies who were on-duty at the time.
He did request reimbursement for the five officers who each worked four hours of overtime during the riot. Three deputies worked calls in the Mineral Wells city limits while police officers were involved at the disturbance.
Mercer’s reimbursement request totaled $439.52, though he didn’t list reimbursement costs for the fuel used in 11 units used in responding to the incident.
The Parker County Sheriff’s Department, however, will not be asking for reimbursement, said Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler. “We decided not to do it. …We didn’t have a lot of overtime [and] elected not to bill them.” He also said they had very minor damage to a vehicle – a dent in a hood.
“In 2005, that was quite lengthy. It [the recent riot] wasn’t like that,” Fowler recalled. For the 2005 incident, “yes, we did request a reimbursement.”
He said to the best of his knowledge, CCA had volunteered to reimburse them.
The incident began shortly after 9 p.m. on Aug. 13 when a group of inmates reportedly took umbrage “with a recently communicated reinforcement of a standard policy requiring inmates to wear T-shirts while on the outside recreation yard,” CCA officials said at the time.
“Any time you have a facility like that, you’re going to run into these kinds of bumps. We want to assist any way we can because we want to protect our citizens,” White said.
Mercer commented it was the departments’ right and the taxpayers’ right to ask for reimbursement for the incident.
