St. Louis jail security chief in battle to keep his job

The Associated Press

ST. LOUIS -- A city official targeted for firing by Mayor Francis Slay over the escape of five inmates from the City Workhouse said he's being made a scapegoat.

Workhouse chief of security Michael McKinney has hired an attorney to try and keep his job.

Slay announced last week that he would seek the dismissal of McKinney and building manager Chuck Cox. And, he suspended public safety director Ed Bushmeyer for one week and city corrections commissioner Dora Schriro for two weeks.

The inmates escaped Feb. 23. Four of the five have been recaptured. Still at large is 50-year-old Ira Neal, who was due to serve a 10-year prison term for probation violation.

McKinney, currently suspended without pay, said no city official asked him about the breakout before Slay announced plans Friday to seek his firing.

Slay's announcement "leapfrogged" the civil service system, C. John Pleban, McKinney's lawyer, said Tuesday.

A "pretermination" hearing was set for Friday at the Workhouse.

Slay said McKinney and Cox knew in advance that prisoners might try to escape but did nothing to prevent it.

A source told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the tip was in an inmate's letter to McKinney.

Pleban said someone other than Schriro should conduct the hearing on the firing of McKinney, who has been chief at the Workhouse for three years.

McKinney denied the mayor's assertion that he failed to cooperate with investigators.

He said no one asked him to explain his actions and he was embarrassed by the mayor's accusation.

Fence in disrepair

"I do not know of anything I could have done different," he said.

McKinney said that despite complaints to superiors by himself and others, the Workhouse fence has been in disrepair for four years.

Asked whether Workhouse prisoners are locked up tightly now, McKinney said, "They're as secure as they can be, I'm pretty sure."

On Tuesday, Schriro led a tour of the Workhouse for the Aldermanic Public Safety Committee. About 20 others, including clergy, community activists and reporters, tagged along. Committee chairman Sharon Tyus, a Democrat, was shown a concrete patch over a small hole the five men punched through a wall to escape.

The five left unnoticed until an off-duty jail cook recognized them on the street and called in. A motion detector on the fence they climbed had failed, guard towers were unmanned and police weren't called to help for possibly as long as an hour and 15 minutes. One tower was manned Tuesday. But Tyus complained, "We were told that all three towers would be manned for the foreseeable future."

Overcrowding

Tyus repeatedly remarked about overcrowding, especially with dormitories packed with beds and dozens of inmates housed in the gymnasium.

On Tuesday, the gym toilet was out. Prisoners used a plastic tub in preference to seeking a guard for escort to the next nearest rest room.

Officials described it as "a one-day problem," but a guard said the toilet had been out about a week.