PITTSBURGH — Allegheny County Jail Warden Orlando Harper defended his administration during a live interview Thursday morning on the Pittsburgh Cable News Channel.
“We want to continue to take the jail forward, we want to make sure we do best practices, we want to become a model for other jails to get guidance from,” Harper told PCNC Anchor Chris Moore on his talk show “Pittsburgh Now.”
Days earlier, Moore had interviewed Brian Englert, who serves as president of the union that represents the jail’s correctional officers. Englert has recently organized a “no confidence” petition against Harper and told Moore that jail staff feel overworked, understaffed, and concerned for their safety.
“It’s very stressful and it’s never been this bad,” Englert said during the live show last week.
But on Thursday, Harper, along with two other officials who joined virtually, told Moore that the jail is staffed adequately.
Officials said they are actively working to recruit and hire more employees, but aren’t being inundated with applications.
“I think every business, every business in the nation is going through staffing issues,” Harper said. “It’s corrections nationwide that’s having a problem recruiting correctional officers ... we are doing everything in our power to try to fill vacancies.”
Harper also stressed that he has an “open-door policy” and welcomes current staff to discuss problems, but claimed that “very few” have.
Moore also asked Harper about the lawsuit recently filed by a former inmate, claiming his leg had to be amputated as a result of poor medical treatment at the jail.
Harper said he couldn’t comment on ongoing litigation, but defended the medical staff.
“We provide our individuals wonderful care,” he said at one point during the half-hour interview. “A lot of individuals that come into our facility, they have medical issues from the start, right when they come through the door. A lot of these individuals have not had health care in years, so when they come to our facility, that’s the first time they’re receiving any type of health care.”
But, during the show’s live call-in time, some other former inmates begged to differ, in what was an unexpected and somewhat tense moment.
Calling in from the Butler County Jail, inmates accused the warden of being dishonest.
“We’re up here at Butler County watching this,” one man, who identified himself as “Robert” said. “There’s about 50 ACJ inmates that just came down. ... You’re telling ‘em that we’re getting perfect medical staff and all that, I broke my wrist, I broke three bones.”
The caller claimed he was not properly treated at ACJ, and only received necessary care once at the Butler County Jail.
Another caller claimed he was unnecessarily quarantined after he sought medical treatment but tested negative for COVID-19.
Harper defended the jail’s COVID-19 protocols.
Channel 11 shares a studio with PCNC, and our crew members reported things were tense behind the scenes.
We later asked Moore about the call.
“It was a little uncomfortable, I think, for the warden to deal with that,” Moore said. “His PR person was a little bit upset but that’s not my job, my job is to ask them the questions, and we had the other side on earlier ... so we had to ask. It may have been a little unfortunate that we got the call. Who knew that was our audience in the Butler County Jail?”
Channel 11 called and spoke with an administrator at the Butler County Jail, and we were told inmates have television access and can make phone calls if they have money in their phone accounts. While certain numbers may be blocked, the PCNC line wouldn’t have been, as it’s a legitimate number that flashes across the screen.
After the interview aired, Channel 11 received this statement from Englert:
Warden Harper stated today that he has an ‘open door policy’. What he failed to mention was that you must schedule an appointment to speak with him, which is the opposite of an ‘open door policy’. The Warden also responded after my interview on PCNC last week that ‘they value the union at the jail and the union leadership’. The warden and his still deputies refuse to answer critical safety questions via email. The Warden also disabled remote access to County email for Officers and union Officials. This action further impedes the union’s ability to respond to dangerous situations and was done in a punitive manner, since it’s not a County wide issue. Lastly, in order to silence union leadership, this administration proceeded to discipline the President of the union recently for sending emails to medical staff regarding suboxone distribution, as well as Tweeting about safety issues.
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