At least one Allegheny County Jail correctional officer was suspended and a handful of others were ordered to undergo drug testing after state K9 teams swept the jail to search for drugs and contraband this week.
Corrections Officer David Englert is suspended without pay, county spokeswoman Amie Downs said Thursday. She would not say when he was suspended or why, but two sources with knowledge of the situation said the officer was suspended because of the results of the search.
The officer could not be reached for comment Thursday.
About 30 personnel from the Department of Corrections conducted the tactical search Tuesday and Wednesday at the request of jail officials.
Nineteen K-9 and handler teams as well as members of the state’s Corrections Emergency Response Teams descended on the jail from nine different state prisons for the search, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Amy Worden said. Ms. Downs confirmed that a search took place in the jail in cooperation with the state but declined to comment further or say what was found.
Common Pleas Judge David Cashman, who chairs the Jail Oversight Board, said the state search was initiated last week after 15 jail employees were sickened by an airborne substance believed to be synthetic marijuana, or K2.
Warden Orlando Harper said in a statement that the substance was entering the jail through chemical-soaked paper, which the inmates then light on fire to get high.
The robust search response was meant to send a message to inmates, Judge Cashman said.
“The sheer numbers of people who went into the facility -- that, with the K-9 dogs, is a message clear and simple to the inmates that we’re serious about addressing this problem,” he said.
One inmate, Terrell Lineberg, 29, faces criminal charges after the teams found a 3-inch metal shank with a cloth-wrapped handle and braided lanyard hidden in his mattress Tuesday, according to court records. He is charged with with possession of an instrument of escape and possession of a weapon.
Ms. Worden said in a statement that the teams found “a number of contraband items,” including weapons, liquid drugs, pills and drug-soaked paper, as well as and lighters.
Sources told the Post-Gazette that the state teams screened all jail employees as they entered the facility and also searched inmate areas floor by floor and pod by pod.
Employees who were searched said they were escorted one at a time into rooms, told to sit in a chair and wait while a drug-sniffing dog checked them over.
Inmates in multiple pods continued to smoke K2 after the searches ended, sources said.
On Wednesday afternoon, jail Deputy Warden Simon Wainwright ordered all corrections officers working on inmate pods to wear protective masks. In an email viewed by the Post-Gazette, he told employees that anyone who failed to comply with the order would be considered insubordinate.
The protective mask mandate was lifted Thursday afternoon, Warden Harper said in a statement. Officials have been unable to identify the substance that made the corrections officers sick, but Warden Harper said he had no evidence that the substance was synthetic marijuana. In a statement about lifting the order, he said he did not believe there were particulates in the air — which is what the masks filter out.
“Moving forward, the facility will be utilizing existing technology to sample the air when similar odors are reported,” Warden Harper said.
The jail’s issue with synthetic marijuana and chemical-soaked paper is a widespread problem in correctional facilities across the state and the nation, said Maj. John Rivello of the Department of Corrections’ Office of Special Investigations and Intelligence.
“In the last year there has been an increase in the liquid K2,” he said Thursday, explaining that people on the outside “make a liquid substance, spray it on paper and mail it in. It’s almost undetectable.”
The exact formula of the synthetic marijuana is constantly changing, he said, adding that chemical-soaked paper looks normal when it dries.
“It’s a lot more tedious to find than the normal, here is marijuana, a green leafy substance,” he said.
The state’s prisons use dogs, electronic drug detection equipment and manual mail checks to try to stop synthetic drugs from entering, Maj. Rivello said.
Allegheny County Jail officials previously identified general mail as a source of contraband, Warden Harper said last week, and began photocopying mail and giving the copies to inmates instead of the originals.
Judge Cashman said officials discovered more recently that drug-soaked mail was entering the jail disguised as privileged legal mail, and said the jail was taking steps to stop that method of smuggling as well. He added that ways of getting contraband into the jail are constantly changing.
“You have to understand we see the problem, we come up with a potential solution -- changing manner of delivering mail -- and they decide to do something else,” he said.
Shelly Bradbury: 412-263-1999, sbradbury@post-gazette.com or follow on Twitter @ShellyBradbury. Staff writer Rich Lord contributed.
First Published: January 18, 2018, 5:18 p.m.
