Denver (KDVR) – ACLU of Colorado and three private attorneys on Sunday filed a class action lawsuit against El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder in federal court, alleging that the El Paso County Jail didn’t comply with COVID-19 public health guidelines, even as more than 800 prisoners tested positive for the virus.
According to the lawsuit, Sheriff Elder failed to provide masks despite receiving $15.6 million in federal funding under the CARES Act for the specific purpose of COVID-19 protection.
The lawsuit is based on hundreds of letters and dozens of interviews. Attorneys are asking the court to require that the sheriff comply with health guidelines, including providing adequate protection from the virus and implementing proper monitoring and treatment for people who test positive.
“While publicly on Facebook Sheriff Elder was imploring citizens to ‘wear a mask,’ privately he and his staff prohibited people from wearing masks in their housing units,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU of Colorado legal director, in a statement. “The result of the sheriff’s multiple failures was the largest COVID-19 outbreak of any jail or prison in the state, with two-thirds of the jail population testing positive. Only then, a few weeks ago, did the sheriff finally begin providing incarcerated people with masks.”
The class action complaint, filed by six detained people on behalf of the entire jail population, claims that Sheriff Elder failed in multiple ways to protect people in his custody from the health risks and chance of death from COVID-19.
One woman who is three months pregnant and being held for a non-violent offense wrote, “I was sleeping within a few feet of COVID positive inmates. Even though I had tested negative and even though I am high risk because I am pregnant and have asthma, the jail still did nothing to move me away from the people who tested positive.”
In addition to failing for months to provide masks, ACLU of Colorado claims the jail mixes people who are COVID-19 positive with others, fails to quarantine new admissions, fails to identify and protect incarcerated people whom the CDC deems to be especially medically vulnerable if they contract the virus, and fails to properly monitor and treat those who develop symptoms.