Richland jail debacle was avoidable if it checked records and Kershaw County did right

Two words should have saved Richland County from hiring a jail director who was fired from his last job for sexual misconduct.

“Discharged/fired” should have been on a “routine separation” form required by the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy. Instead, where the form asked for the manner of departure for Tyrell Cato, a former Kershaw County jail director, the answer was “Resigned/Voluntary.”

The form might seem like some in-the-weed bureaucracy, but it is a crucial tool to keep bad police officers and jailers from getting jobs again.

In the case of Richland County and Cato, the process failed. Of course, we now know that Richland County didn’t contact the Criminal Justice Academy for a background check on Cato until after the county hired him.

But that doesn’t excuse Kershaw County’s error, which resulted from deceit, inattention or incompetence.

The fiasco shows the need for changes in officer oversight.

Officers overseeing officers doesn’t work

Back in April, Richland County was looking into hiring Cato away from Kershaw County, according to Richland Administrator Leonardo Brown. Richland desperately needed someone to take over the troubled, understaffed Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center. In the last few months, the county has been accused in lawsuits of mistreating patients with mental illnesses and of causing the death of an inmate who the coroner says died by homicide.

In May, Kershaw County fired Cato for sexual misconduct, according to records. An administrative assistant in the jail said Cato asked her for sex, sniffed her hair during a hug and said he liked her legs, according to a written statement from her.

Cato has denied those claims.

On the day Cato was fired, Ervin Whack, a lieutenant at the Kershaw County Detention Center, wrote a letter to the internal investigators saying he’d known Cato for 10 years. He fawned about Cato, calling him admirable.

In June, Whack’s name was on the routine separation form filed with the Criminal Justice Academy that wrongly said Cato resigned. Whack’s electronic signature was below “I hereby attest that the reason for separation . . . does NOT involve misconduct.”

In June, a Kershaw County committee upheld Cato’s firing.

Whack should have never been authorized to file the separation form. It’s an obvious conflict of interest for someone who supported Cato in a written statement to file a report about Cato’s departure.

No single police agency or jail should be the only source for reporting why someone left law enforcement or a corrections facility. It’s too tempting for an agency to want to save face by putting the best spin on a potentially embarrassing situation.

It’s not known yet whether that’s what happened in Kershaw County. The county administrator said he believes an honest mistake was made on the form and it wasn’t malicious. But it’s happened before with other agencies.

The Criminal Justice Academy can’t eliminate deceit, but it can shore up protocols for reporting how officers leave their agencies.

The academy should require that two representatives sign off on the separation form, one from the agency the officer is leaving and another from the human resources department of the county, city or institution where the officer worked. The academy also should require an investigation or hearing when an agency amends a separation form.

Two words in the end

The Richland County administration might have given itself some cover in making such a bad hire if they had requested Cato’s academy record. But Richland County didn’t request Cato’s academy record until July 27, nearly three weeks after it hired him.

Two days after Richland County requested the records, his separation form with the Criminal Justice Academy was amended to report that he had been fired. Again, the form shows that Whack signed it.

However, from the form alone, Richland County even now wouldn’t suspect misconduct. That’s because the form still says Cato — fired for sexual misconduct — wasn’t fired for misconduct.

As defined by academy regulations, one form of misconduct is “physical or psychological abuses of members of the public and/or prisoners.” The behavior described by the administrative assistant surely seemed like psychological abuses.

Now, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division is investigating allegations of misconduct involving Cato and the incorrect separation form. That’s good. From the original form mislabeling Cato’s separation from the county to the new form saying the firing was not related to misconduct, it’s logical for the public to wonder about a cover-up to protect Cato. A SLED investigation should answer that question.

Kershaw County deserves some props for requesting the SLED investigation. But the county should take a further step to ensure a thorough probe occurs by hiring an outside attorney to investigate why the incorrect form was filed.

Getting rid of bad officers is as easy as police and county leaders ensuring two words are honestly written on a form.

Here are two more words for Richland County.

Fire him.