So much has changed in nearly every facet of life in the past month that it’s hard to find solid mooring no matter how hard we look. There are, these days, so very few things in whose consistency and reliability we can take solace amid the otherwise suffocating influx of hellish news.
It’d be nice if one of those constants wasn’t the generally awful operation of the Cuyahoga County jail, but here we are.
The jail’s warden, Gregory Croucher, resigned this week.
He had been on the job all of eight months.
He had recently been the subject of three internal investigations. One alleged that he had an on-duty jail officer drive him to the airport. A second alleged that he used excessive force on a female inmate. A third alleged that he retaliated against officers who voiced complaints about Croucher’s management.
In a report finalized Tuesday (see PDF below), the county’s Inspector General found that Croucher did have a subordinate employee ferry him to Hopkins while on duty. While the IG didn’t find sufficient evidence of the use-of-force allegation, it is waiting on a report from the U.S. Marshals, whose custody the female inmate was under and who might have more information. Oh, and the IG found that Croucher retaliated against his employees, because this is the Cuyahoga County jail and of course he did.
Croucher submitted his resignation yesterday, the day after the report from the IG’s office.
Is that all?
Of course not.
Gregory Croucher recently went on vacation to Costa Rica. He left on March 12, according to a county spokesperson. That was two days after Gov. Mike DeWine had one of his first press conferences with announcements that the state had positive COVID-19 cases and that Ohio was asking colleges and sports leagues to cancel classes and games. While there were no orders yet, DeWine was quite clear this was a growing problem.
“Every act each one of us takes now has very significant consequences. Each decision not only impacts us, not just our families, but people we don’t even know. We’re at a critical time,” DeWine said.
Croucher then went to Costa Rica.
He returned on March 25, to a whole different world where precautions are taken, and was told to self isolate but went into the jail anyway.
Sigh.
The end.
Do better next time, Cuyahoga County.
This article appears in Apr 1-7, 2020.
Should anyone come to expect anything different from the incompetent/inept county administration headed by thief Budish???
So nice that these six-figured salary administrators can go to exotic, far-away lands for a vacation, while most of the rest of us have to slave away at our jobs just to pay the outrageous taxes in this corruption-filled county and city!!!
It’s time to recall thief Budish out of office now!!! And while we’re at it, Taxin Jackson needs to be shown the door too!!!
“Do better next time”?!?
What, were you high when you wrote the last part of this article? Look at who his resignation was addressed to and then realize that as long as that scummy, corrupt, death is business as usual, don’t give a damn as long as he and the rest of the morons in administration down there can keep lining their pockets with money that should be going to the daily operations and maintenance of that hell hole, piece of garbage, thief sneak Budish is in charge, nothing will ever change.
He’s proud of the progress they’ve made in 8 months? Progress in what I might ask? Progress in fleecing prisoners and family members out of even more cash now that they’ve eliminated personal visits for their video chat scam? Progress in having probably the most unprofessional and corrupt CO’s and SRT team members in the entire country who are still supplementing their incomes by selling drugs in the jail and carrying out hits for gang members? Progress in being the fastest fired Warden with the largest number of scandals in the shortest amount of time?
Look at what’s going on at the top, and then imagine how much dirtier it gets the further down the chain it goes. You’ll never have a respectable or humane institution when it’s being run by complete and utter scum.
Scumbag Budish and the sleazebag Warden shouldn’t have been running that jail, they should be in it with orange jumpsuits on themselves. Won’t ever happen though because if you’re connected down there the do nothing prosecutors just refuse to prosecute you and then move on to the really important criminals in the system like homeless people and drug addicts. Those are the cases that really make a difference, right assholes? Hey, stand up in court and tell us more about the importance of law and order, you hypocrite shitbags.
You can beat the shit out of women or have enough evidence that you’re involved in a murder that you’d be tried and convicted anywhere else and either the scuzball Cleveland cops will cover for you, the ball less prosecutors will refuse to prosecute you, or the hypocrite judges will refuse to hear the case. Hell, all three if you’re the mayor’s grandson.
How anyone that works in those positions down there can look themselves in the mirror is beyond me.