Top jailer fired

The board of directors for Burke-Catawba District Confinement Facility fired its director, Maj. Mike Metcalf on Thursday.
The action takes affect at 5 p.m. Friday. 
The board of directors met on Thursday at the Catawba County Justice Center in Newton. The board made the unanimous decision after coming out of closed session. The board is made up of the county managers and sheriffs of Burke and Catawba counties.
The board also agreed to hire Steve Whisnant as the interim director of the facility. Whisnant was filling in as interim director since last week while Metcalf was on adminis-trative leave.
Burke County Sheriff and chairman of the Burke-Catawba jail John McDevitt decided to put Metcalf on paid administrative leave on Aug. 5.
Earlier this month, the board of directors voted to give McDevitt operational control of the facility.
Lt. Randy Walker and Administrative Assistant Elise Reitzel also were put on adminis-trative leave at the same time as Metcalf, McDevitt said.
Board members on Thursday didn't give a reason for firing Metcalf except to say that the director of the facility serves at the pleasure of the board. 
Metcalf was making $53,800 when he was put on leave.
McDevitt said he couldn't say why the others were put on administrative leave, saying it is a personnel matter. Whisnant will deal with personnel issues as the interim director, McDevitt said.
Whisnant is a retired chief federal probation officer for the eastern district of Virginia. Prior to that, he was the deputy chief probation officer for the western district of North Carolina. In the 1980s, Whisnant worked at the Burke County Sheriff's Office as a detec-tive, lieutenant of detectives and captain of operations. 
McDevitt said he's known Whisnant for 40 years and said he couldn't have searched worldwide and found a more trusted individual to run the jail. He said Whisnant comes highly recommended from the federal government.
In addition to making the staffing change, the board heard from John Harkins, state jail and detention section chief, about issues he found in an inspection of the jail he con-ducted this week.
McDevitt made it clear during the board meeting that he requested Harkins inspect the facility.
The board of directors of the jail decided McDevitt should inspect the jail. After his in-spection, McDevitt compared what he found to the previous jail inspection in July. The items he found weren't on the previous state jail inspection, he said.
It was after his inspection that McDevitt requested an inspection by Harkins.
He said he and Harkins went through the facility cell by cell to find out what is working and what's not. The major security issues were working, McDevitt said.
In Harkins' report to the board on Thursday, he said there were plenty of disturbing things going on.
Harkins said he found 32 speakers that either were not working or had been removed. Those speakers are for inmates to be able to communicate with staff, he said, and there aren't any video cameras in the areas to supplement the broken or missing speakers.
He said 10 sinks in inmate living quarters either had no water or no hot water. There also are other plumbing issues he found, Harkins said.
Harkins also found 14 security doors either missing or not working, he said. The issues concerning the doors were noted in the previous inspection, he said.
Harkins also found no inventory of firearms, no inventory of keys or things such as hand-cuffs. Those items should be accounted for, he said.
McDevitt said the people who would know whether there is an inventory of items have been on administrative leave.
Harkins also found that jailers were taking inmate blood pressure and blood sugar read-ings, which shouldn't be happening because they could read the results wrong, he said.
McDevitt told the board that most of the things found were cosmetic and aren't inmate safety issues. He said there's no single big issue but a lot of little issues.
But improvements to the jail will cost money at a time when most counties are struggling to fund any extras.
McDevitt said both counties will share the cost of the improvements. McDevitt said the facility has some money from vacant positions that can be used for improvements. But they have to identify what the improvements will cost and decide where the money will come from, he said.
Burke-Catawba isn't the only jail facing woe in Burke County. On Aug. 2, Harkins pre-sented to county commissioners his findings of an   inspection he conducted of the Burke County Jail. He told commissioners what improvements are needed at the jail to be in compliance with state standards.