After being denied her full budget request, Albemarle County Sheriff Chan Bryant has dissolved a contract with the county police department, claiming her office is not equipped to fulfill the contract’s demands.
The contract, known as a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, requires that the sheriff’s office assist the Albemarle County Police Department with, among other things, transporting mental health patients to hospitals across the commonwealth.
It’s a time-consuming process, and one that Bryant says she has not been given sufficient resources to complete.
“It’s about staffing. I can’t continue to pull staff out to do these transports for the police department if they don’t give me extra staffing to do so,” Bryant told The Daily Progress.
Before the county passed its annual budget this spring, Bryant had lobbied the Board of Supervisors to provide her four additional sheriff’s deputies. Bryant currently has 25 deputies and supervisors on her team, but extra staffing, she argued, was needed to meet the demands of the transports, formally known as temporary detention orders, or TDOs.
When police in Virginia are dispatched to a person experiencing a mental health crisis, officers determine if that person is a danger to themself or others. If so, the person is taken to a local hospital. There, a mental health worker from Region Ten, a Charlottesville-based behavioral health organization, evaluates the patient and determines if they need to be taken to a different hospital for proper treatment. A magistrate then orders a TDO, which requires law enforcement to take the patient to the new hospital. But there are only a few hospitals that provide such treatment: the closest is in Staunton, while the furthest is in Russell County, roughly four hours from Charlottesville.
Law enforcement has limited time to respond to a TDO, and the orders can come in sporadically at any hour of the day. In 2022, Bryant’s office responded to more than 120 mental health transports.
Last year, Bryant wrote to Attorney General Jason Miyares asking for clarity on the role of law enforcement in TDOs.
“Law enforcement must execute the order without delay and maintain custody of the individual until custody is accepted by the temporary detention facility,” Miyares wrote.
The primary duty of a sheriff’s office, as required by Virginia law, is to secure the courthouse, its courtrooms and trials. TDOs are to be executed by a locality’s primary law enforcement agency, which in Albemarle is the police department.
But the MOU between the police department and the sheriff’s office requires that the two entities occasionally assist each other. For instance, the sheriff’s office must provide services such as search and rescue, prisoner extraditions and TDO transports. It’s that last requirement that Bryant says her office is unable to fulfill.
“We cover transportation of these patients 24/7 currently, and we’re the only nonprimary law enforcement sheriff’s office in the commonwealth of Virginia that does so,” Bryant said. “I did let the county and police department know that I’m willing to enter into a MOU that covered everything as the current MOU except for TDO transports. I said, ‘We’re happy to do them, just give me the staffing to do it.’”
Because TDOs can come at any time of day, Bryant can’t plan for when an order will come. But when it does, she has to send two staff members to complete the TDO, which gives her less staffing for her constitutional duty: securing courtrooms.
“I did a presentation in front of the Board of Supervisors and showed them the impact that these transports have on our office,” Bryant said. “87% of the time those transports affect our operations, which means either I have to pull people out of court or they’re out all night and can’t come to work because they’ve been out all night on a transport.”
The board did provide Bryant one additional deputy in its budget, but she says the county froze the position.
“So in essence they took that position away from me,” Bryant said.
The MOU will officially be dissolved on Aug. 15, and the police department will need to rearrange its staffing to account for the new TDO responsibility. When The Daily Progress reached out to the police department asking for comment from Police Chief Sean Reeves, it was directed to county spokeswoman Abbey Stumpf.
Stumpf noted that a full-time position for the sheriff’s office was approved in this year’s budget to assist with TDOs.
“Since this service is no longer being provided, the funds have been reappropriated to the Reserve for Contingencies. With the TDO responsibility now shifting to ACPD, redirecting the FTE/position to ACPD will be considered at the Board of Supervisors meeting on August 7,” Stumpf wrote in an email.
Bryant said she recently sent a new MOU — without the TDO requirement — to the county for consideration but has not yet heard back.
“We have been fully engaged with the implication of the changed relationship and how ACPD will assume the delivery of several services previously provided by the Sheriff’s Office including Temporary Detention Order (TDO) transports, prisoner extraditions, and search and rescue operations. County staff are making a holistic review of service delivery and are not able to consider a new MOU at this time,” Stumpf wrote.
The recent change, Stumpf continued, presents challenges for the county, but also presents an opportunity for the police department “to become more self-reliant in delivering critical services to our community while allowing the Sheriff’s Office to focus on their mandated duties of court security.”
Bryant first joined the sheriff’s office in 1995 and was first elected sheriff in 2019. A sheriff is the only locally elected constitutional law enforcement officer in Virginia, meaning they effectively report to no one other than voters every four years. Bryant won reelection last year running unopposed and will not be on the ballot again until 2027.
This is not the first time Bryant has made waves since her recent reelection.
In March, Bryant ordered her deputies, who serve as court bailiffs, not to move the microphones in Albemarle courtrooms. Courtroom microphones are not used for recording but rather to amplify sound so that lawyers, witnesses and others involved in trials can be more easily heard and the court reporter can take an accurate transcription.
Judges were apparently not briefed on Bryant’s decision. During a criminal trial, when Albemarle County Judge Cheryl Higgins asked a bailiff to reposition a microphone closer to a speaker, she was surprised that the bailiff declined the request.
“Did you say, ‘I’m not moving f’ing microphones anymore?’” Higgins asked the bailiff.
Seeking clarity for the denial, Higgins then asked Bryant to appear in the courtroom, effectively bringing the criminal trial to a halt. After some delay, Bryant entered the room and Higgins asked if she had ordered bailiffs not to move microphones.
“That’s correct, your honor,” said Bryant. “They’re here for courtroom security and to maintain order in the gallery. They’re not here to move microphones.”
The conflict was resolved a week later when Bryant ordered two additional microphones at the cost of $2,739.
“The problem has been rectified, and I rectified it,” Bryant told The Daily Progress at the time, adding that moving microphones is a distraction for bailiffs. “The deputy’s attention is diverted to moving microphones every time somebody speaks as opposed to paying attention to the security of the courtroom.”
At the present time, the county appears to be planning to have police handle TDOs going forward and has not indicated a willingness to provide Bryant with more staffing or to amend the MOU. As Stumpf said, the additional position that the county provided for the sheriff’s office in this year’s budget may now be redirected to the police department. Now that the sheriff’s office will no longer be providing certain services such as TDOs, it is not clear if Bryant’s staff will be increased or decreased in the future.
Stumpf said the county is committed to finding long-term, sustainable solutions to the dilemma.
“We want to reassure the community that their safety and well-being remain our top priority. We are proud of our officers’ dedication and commitment to serving our community. Their hard work and resilience make ACPD strong,” Stumpf wrote.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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