Will Richland endorse toxicity, or will it fire its jail leader after harassment claims?

Add the potential for a toxic work culture among leadership to the list of problems Richland County’s jail faces.

If the extreme staffing shortage, rising violent episodes and lawsuits weren’t enough, the county hired a jail director who was initially shielded from full accountability for a substantiated sexual harassment claim and who was accused of encouraging a woman to have a relationship with a supervisor at his previous job, reporters with The State have revealed.

Richland County needs to get rid of its recently hired jail director and do a legitimate nationwide director search. Otherwise, the county is saying it doesn’t believe victims of sexual harassment and is continuing to protect a man willing to abuse power.

In July, Richland County’s administration hired Tyrell Cato as director of the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center. Cato had a decade of experience at the Kershaw County Detention Center, including as director. But Kershaw fired him in May after an investigation into allegations that Cato had sexually harassed his administrative assistant. Richland County’s administration has claimed ignorance about Cato’s firing.

The toxic behavior at the Kershaw County Detention Center doesn’t appear limited to Cato. Two years before he was fired, one of the top Lieutenants, Ervin Whack, was fired from Kershaw County after accusations of sexual harassment by a woman who worked at the jail. She said Whack, her supervisor, tried to kiss her multiple times and sent her graphic photos of himself holding his genitals, The State’s Morgan Hughes and Ted Clifford reported.

The woman who accused Whack said that Cato encouraged her to have a relationship with Whack. Cato also harassed her by commenting at least twice on her breasts, she said.

Whack was fired for fraternization by a county official who said it could not be proven that the lieutenant engaged in sexual harassment. But the county grievance committee reinstated Whack because the county jail didn’t have a policy at the time against fraternization.

The grievance committee reinstated Whack without hearing the woman’s side, according to the report.

You read that right. The committee that rehired Whack never heard from the person who accused him of sexual harassment. She said the committee never called on her to testify, and a county official confirmed that.

That should be shocking. But too often, when women report harassment, they are either not believed or their complaints are brushed off.

If the committee had heard from her, she could have told them what she told The State’s reporters and what she wrote to county officials: “the relationship was not mutual” and “she felt pressured to respond cordially to Whack’s texts because he was her boss.”

A couple years later, on the day Kershaw County’s administration fired Cato, Whack wrote a glowing letter defending Cato. After Cato’s firing, Whack signed off on criminal justice academy records that said Cato hadn’t been fired, but voluntarily resigned. Only after reporters started asking Kershaw County in late July about Cato’s firing did Whack amend his former boss’ record to say he was fired. Now, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division is investigating the misrepresentation.

Kershaw County’s administration has said that the record’s misrepresentation of Cato’s separation apparently was an “honest, clerical mistake,” but with each passing day more questions arise about whether the honest mistake was something else.

Cato said he had nothing to do with his separation being listed as voluntary rather than a firing.

Case after case of men in power sexually harassing, abusing or mistreating women have proven that those men do not operate in a vacuum. They are enabled and protected by people around them.

With two top jail administrators being investigated for sexual harassment in the last two years, it leaves one wondering if that sinister code of protection was at work in detention center between Cato and Whack.

Now a part of that cabal has stepped right into Richland County’s beleaguered jail, and the county’s administration hasn’t done anything to fix it. The longer Cato is the director of Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, the longer the county is giving a big thumbs up to the idea that it doesn’t believe victims of sexual harassment and that the actions that got Cato fired weren’t all that bad.

They most definitely were. The State newspaper, to maintain decorum, hasn’t published the lurid details a woman provided to Kershaw County of how Cato badgered her with sexual explicit requests and talk.

Richland needs to fire Cato as soon as it can. The county needs to learn from its hiring mistake and do a robust search for a new jail director.

As for Kershaw County, it would benefit from examining its jail administration to ensure a toxic culture isn’t still prevalent.

Richland County has a chance to prove that men who abuse power won’t get away with it.

If the county doesn’t fire Cato, it’s no better than any others who enable and shield abusers of power.