Tech problem rears up at county detention center

An equipment failure at the Lincoln County Detention Center is threatening to curtail local law enforcement officers’ ability to house inmates.

Surveillance cameras installed inside cells malfunctioned in recent weeks, said Lincoln County Sheriff Darren Short and Undersheriff Brad Dodson. Without a video feed, detention center staff cannot monitor inmates inside the cells, Short said.

“Without the camera system working, we can’t have somebody in there,” Short said. “We can’t maintain observation of them.”

Short and Dodson asked the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners on July 1 for approval to replace the system. When County Administrator Pat McFadden proposed fixing the cameras as part of a larger overhaul of the security system at the courthouse complex, which houses the detention center, the pair emphasized the urgency of their request.

Short said they already had spoken with the county’s head of information technology and learned of plans to replace the courthouse building’s surveillance cameras. The needs at the detention center required immediate attention, Short and Dodson said.

“We need to make this a priority. We need to push this,” Dodson said.

McFadden and County Commissioner Mark Peck (D-1) earlier had pointed to the advantages of replacing or upgrading the existing system in one fell swoop. Going it alone could leave the county with different systems and vendors, Peck said.

McFadden had asked the sheriff’s office to research vendors who could meet the dual requirements of the detention center and the courthouse as a whole.

The shortcomings of the building’s cameras came into focus during the Black Lives Matter rally in June, he said. Although the video feeds worked, those monitoring the footage could not make out the individuals caught on camera with any degree of certainty.

“All we need is for someone to come to court and something to happen and not have camera footage of it,” McFadden said.

Short and Dodson said they worried whether they could wait to coordinate on a mutual overhaul.

“Unfortunately, [there] is the tyranny of the urgent — that’s the downfall of all of this,” Dodson said. “Our cameras are faltering now.”

Dodson said that a vendor with a branch in Kalispell had come recommended from other law enforcement agencies. That said, Short did not have an estimate for how much the work in the detention center would cost.

“I don’t know if it’s $3,000, $5,000 or $15,000,” he told commissioners. “I have no ballpark to start from.”

Given the unknowns, Peck advised the pair to contact a vendor and bring in an expert to assess the problem. He recommended they also look for possible temporary fixes in the meantime.

“We will carry on and move forward then,” Short said. “We will try to get someone up here to look at it.”