COVID-19 Presenting Challenges For Law Enforcement Agencies

NORTH, MS. (WCBI)- Law enforcement officers are being put in a unique situation when it comes to patrolling their beat during a pandemic.

They have to balance keeping themselves and their communities safe.

Their duties are to protect and serve.

However, Clay County Sheriff Eddie Scott said COVID-19 is making those responsibilities become challenging.

“The officers are putting themselves at risk,” said Sheriff Scott. “The individual you’re dealing with, you have no idea if they could be positive, they could have a stomach bug or a flu we don’t know, all we know is that we’ve got a job to do and we’ve got to do it.”

Scott said following guidelines given by the Centers for Disease Control can be tough because their job requires them to be hands-on.

“The guidelines, the social distancing, the gloves, the masks, those are guidelines for us, in reality, it’s not going to always pan out,” the sheriff expressed. “We’ve got a job to do, we’ve got to continue doing our job and maintain public safety.”

Scott said his deputies are wearing masks and gloves whenever they respond to calls, but the extra gear can sometimes hinder them from doing their job.

“The masks for example, they can create problems, especially when officers are answering calls,” the sheriff explained. “Being able to make sure the people they’re dealing with can hear them speak plainly, clearly, and understand their commands.”

Despite their best efforts to practice safety habits, the virus has found its way inside the department.

“A month ago I had one of my deputies test positive and I just recently had three of my correctional officers at the jail test positive,” said Scott.

It’s not only the Clay County Sheriff’s Department that’s being impacted, the Winston County Sheriff’s Department is also facing similar issues.

“We’ve had a few of our guards who’ve tested positive, they had to be quarantined and re-tested, and then we’ve had some inmates,” said Keith Alexander, Chief Deputy for the Winston County Sheriff’s Department.

Alexander said the pandemic is forcing them to switch up their approach when responding to certain calls.

“If we have to go in a house, we wear a mask and gloves, if it’s possible, we try to get the victims to step outside and talk to us instead of going in their house,” Alexander described. “We don’t want to carry something into their house and contaminate them and affect them if we happen to have it.”

Deputies are constantly having to clean and sanitize their vehicles whenever they’re transporting an inmate.

Alexander said they have all of these guidelines in place because he knows how big of a blow it’ll be on the department if a deputy were to contract the virus.

“We only have eight full time officers county me and the sheriff, so it does put a big burden on us if someone gets sick,” said Alexander. “If it weren’t for our part time and reserve deputies it would be tough to handle it, but we would handle it.”

With both being small agencies, they said they’d rely on help from neighboring counties to assist them, should any of their deputies contract the virus.

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