Calhoun County Sheriff Steve Hinkley says he s confident that all reasonable and effective measures are being taken to keep inmates safe.
Sheriff Hinkley has confirmed a recent surge of positive COVID-19 cases at the county jail which is also used to house Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees.
The sheriff confirmed that 12 inmates at the jail tested positive for COVID-19 between February 28 and March 1. Additionally, 8 corrections staff were also found to be COVID-19 positive since February 20. He says that all proper recommended mitigation is being followed and that some staff will be back on the job shortly.
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A sheriff’s deputy who arrested a Black Michigan man for “soliciting” though he was only collecting signatures to help his community has been fired.
The announcement about the unidentified deputy’s termination was made by Calhoun County Sheriff Steve Hinkley and Undersheriff Timothy Hurtt on Friday, Jan. 22 after an internal investigation, MLive reported.
“We hold ourselves to high standards of professionalism to the communities we protect. When we are right, we are right. When we are wrong, we admit we are wrong. On January 2, we were wrong,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
La’Ron Marshall, 44, was going door to door on Jan. 2 collecting signatures to form a tenant association where he lives at the Wyndtree Apartments where he lives in the southern Michigan town of Springfield. He was approached by while he was at his neighbor Kimberly Totzke’s apartment by two deputies who said they’d received a call about someone soliciting.
Calhoun County Sheriff Steve Hinkley has fired a department deputy. The deputy was one of two responding to a call recently to a rental housing complex in Springfield. The caller thought a man might have been illegally soliciting residents at Wyndtree Apartments in Springfield. During the initial contact between deputies, the man refused to provide his identity. He was arrested for resisting and obstructing police. It later turned out he was trying to gather petition signatures to possibly form a tenant association. Springfield has no ordinance against soliciting. The man, 44-year-old La’Ron Marshall, who lives at that rental complex, has already received an apology from the department for the incident. Sheriff Steve Hinkley came on the 95.3 WBCK Morning Show ten days after the incident and acknowledged the department s mistake.