SAN ANTONIO — The president of the Deputy Sheriff's Association of Bexar County is calling on the Sheriff’s Administration and other county leaders to rethink hiring and recruitment practices after at least two deputies were brutally attacked by inmates.
With 184 vacancies at the jail alone, deputies have said that the jail is dangerously short-staffed. On Thursday, a detention deputy was stabbed in the face by an inmate. Authorities said the inmate, identified as Niko Dotcie-Jenkins, punctured the deputy’s cheek with contraband.
Sheriff Javier Salazar said before that incident, a deputy was assaulted by an inmate, resulting in a broken leg. According to DSABC president Jeremy Payne, the deputy had to undergo reconstructive surgery on her leg.
“Something has got to be done,” Payne said of the vacancies. “They’ve got to take it more seriously. They haven’t. Last night is just something that shows that those things are going to cause more and more of these types of incidents to happen.”
During a Friday press conference addressing the arrest of Andres Ibarra, a former Bexar county sheriff’s deputy, Salazar said the arrest exemplified why he believes in maintaining strict hiring practices. Salazar said Ibarra, who was hired under a previous sheriff, shouldn’t have been hired in the first place citing Ibarra’s criminal record.
Ibarra resigned from the Sheriff’s Office in May and had been working security before he was arrested on a charge of indecency with a child.
He said while he appreciates and empathizes with deputies who work long hours, he will stay the course with his current hiring practices.
“I will not, just for the sake of cutting back overtime, hire the wrong kind of people and open the flood gates and say, ‘Hey, you’ve got a pulse, come on in,’” Salazar said. “We’re not doing that.”
Payne, however, said that he’s not asking for relaxed hiring practices.
“They can raise the pay here and do things to be more attractive to people out in the neighborhoods to actually come here and treat this like a profession, like a career,” Payne said. “We’re not satisfied with how they’re hiring and look, they’re going to have to find an answer to that. It’s not the union’s job to staff the jail. It’s solely relies on the sheriff and his administration to do that.”
Payne said that the association recently initiated contract negotiations.
Those interested in becoming Bexar County sheriff's deputies can contact 210-335-JOBS or visit BCSOCareers.com for more information.