Threat of coronavirus outbreak latest trouble at decaying SF jail

SAN FRANCISCO - City lawmakers have proposed closing the jail on the top floor of San Francisco’s Hall of Justice for years. The facility is seismically unsafe. Inmates are packed 12-to-a-cell. And sewage leaks have made living conditions unbearable.

Now, the new threat of a coronavirus outbreak has made the troubling situation in the County Jail No. 4 at 850 Bryant St. even more dire.

Health care workers have been preparing for the worst. They’ve been conducting “aggressive” and “enhanced” screening on all inmates after a deputy in the jail recently tested positive for COVID-19, officials said.

They know the virus could sweep through and overwhelm the inmates and staff.

“It’s absolutely an example of a worst case scenario for us and the reason why we’ve advocated for moving our population out of this location and establishing another location,” Sheriff Paul Miyamoto said.

He wants the city to renovate the jail in San Bruno to make room and close the dilapidated facility in San Francisco.

His proposal came four years after San Francisco lawmakers rejected a plan to build a new jail and passed on $80 million from the state to build a modern facility.

With no plan from the city to move the inmates, the Sheriff’s Department has been doing what it can to protect them, including spreading them out. It’s their attempt at social distancing where space is limited.

The Sheriff’s Department and courts have also been releasing more inmates, finding alternatives to incarceration – like house arrest and ankle monitoring – for people who previously may not have qualified.

This week, the population of all the city’s jails dropped more than 25% since the threat from the coronavirus hit.

So far, no inmates have tested positive.

“Right now we’re on self-quarantine, just out of an abundance of caution to make sure there’s nobody new coming into the population,” Miyamoto said.

But as the city works to create space in the jail, Miyamoto also must consider a balance with public safety.

More than half of the charges inmates face at County Jail No. 4 are for violent crimes.

The most common crimes are burglary, assault, robbery and murder.

But advocates for the inmates say the sheriff isn’t doing enough to protect the inmates.

Martina Avalos is an attorney in the public defender’s office and has been filing court motions to get her clients released pretrial.

“They all know very keenly and if one person gets it they’re all going to get it,” she said. “They’re scared for their families and they’re scared for their communities and they’re trapped and they can’t protect themselves.”

With many courtrooms closed from the shelter in place order, she said it’s been a struggle to get a hearing. She believes it’s only a matter of time before everyone in the jail is infected.

“There’s no physical way that that jail with its capacity could go down to a distance where enough people would be able to keep a 6-foot distance,” she said.

Some lawmakers have seized on the moment in the latest attempt to close the jail. Last week, Supervisor Sandra Fewer introduced legislation that would force the city to close the jail in six months without a replacement.

“The health and safety concerns that have long existed at jail No. 4 are now significantly more compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and the risk of spreading the spread of this infection with social distancing is basically impossible,” she said.

Miyamoto, though, said Fewer’s plan is coming at a terrible time. If the jail at the Hall of Justice is forced to close while coronavirus is still a threat, he would have to move the inmates into the other jails and reduce overall space.

Evan Sernoffsky is an investigative reporter for KTVU. Email Evan at evan.sernoffsky@foxtv.com and follow him on Twitter @EvanSernoffsky