Prison guard charges racism

One evening last March security guard Melvin Croom ordered two men he considered unruly to vacate a Las Vegas gas station.

Metro Police arrived a short time later, but it was Croom who was arrested for allegedly pointing his handgun at the men. He also was charged with being under the influence of alcohol and possessing an unregistered firearm.

Nine days later, Croom, 36, was fired from his day job as a corrections officer at the Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Facility in North Las Vegas because of the arrest. But all the charges against Croom were eventually dropped, and he is now seeking justice.

On Wednesday, he will have a chance to confront prison officials in an informal hearing in Las Vegas before the Nevada Equal Rights Commission.

Croom, who is black, has charged that he was wrongfully discharged from the state's only privately run prison on the basis of race. He alleged that a white prison guard kept his job even though he shot out the windshield of a prison van.

"They terminated me for an arrest, but they know they can't get away with it," Croom said. "In that facility you are assumed guilty until proven innocent."

In his complaint filed with the commission, Croom added, "I feel that the discharge was in retaliation for (my) complaining about the rights of the inmates being violated."

The charges of being under the influence and in possession of an unregistered gun were dropped in late March. It turned out the arresting officer wrote down the wrong registration number for the gun. The gun-pointing charge also was dismissed in June after the witnesses failed to appear in court.

Still, prison spokesman Rich Douglas defended the firing of Croom, noting that the burden of proof for discharging an employee does not have to be as high as that of a criminal proceeding.

"The burden of proof is considerably higher in a criminal matter than in a civil matter," Douglas said. "Obviously, the assistant warden (Christine Bodo) thought an incident occurred that was significant enough that he (Croom) couldn't perform safely on the job."

Bodo wrote to Croom on March 11 that he was to be fired that day for "inappropriate use of a weapon, which reflects negatively on your ability to perform the duties of your position."

A week later, senior divisional director John Brush of the Corrections Corp. of America, which operates the prison, wrote to Croom that the Tennessee company based its decision on the arrest report.

"The arrest report is very clear that your behavior was inappropriate for a security officer," Brush wrote.

But Croom scored a victory when appeals referee Shannon Hume of the Nevada Employment Security Division ruled that he was entitled to unemployment benefits. Hume noted that the prison may have considered an arrest sufficient reason to fire Croom, "but that does not automatically establish misconduct."

Hume also observed that the arrest wasn't connected with his work at the prison.

"Finally, the facts of the underlying incident do not establish that the claimant (Croom) did anything wrong," Hume ruled. "He was not under the influence when the incident occurred. He did not point his weapon at any human being. His weapon was registered as required.

"The preponderance of evidence establishes that the claimant behaved in a manner which was reasonable and professional given his position as a security guard."

The prison, which celebrated its first anniversary this month and houses about 525 women, is still a work in progress with its share of critics. Its ultimate success or failure could determine whether the state's ever-expanding prison system adds other privately-run facilities.

One of its sharpest critics is Bob Gagnier, executive director of the State of Nevada Employees Association, which represents workers in state-run prisons. Gagnier said he is aware of some state employees who have been fired for wrongdoing based merely on a preponderance of evidence. But he said the due process afforded state employees is much stronger than it is for workers in privately run facilities such as the women's prison.

"Our people have due process as a matter of law," Gagnier said. "The law is set by the Legislature and the (state) agencies follow it. They (Corrections Corp. of America) can change their due process policy anytime they want, and they can determine whether to follow it or not."

To hear it from Croom and another former corrections officer who requested anonymity, due process at the women's prison is virtually nonexistent.

At the time Croom was fired, the prison had a three-step grievance process. But he said the prison violated that process by failing to give him a Step 1 meeting with a supervisor within seven working days of a grievance he filed following his termination. He said the prison further violated procedure when he attempted to advance his grievance to warden Loy Hayes (Step 2) without response.

He finally talked to a prison supervisor on March 24, 12 days after filing his grievance. Without his knowledge, however, his grievance had already been forwarded to corporate headquarters in Nashville, Tenn., which is the final step. As Brush's March 19 letter indicated, the company had made a final determination against him, skipping the first two steps of the grievance process.

The other former guard said she was falsely accused of bringing marijuana into the facility. She complained that she was fired this summer without the prison coming up with hard evidence against her, adding that the accusations came from inmates who didn't like her.

"You're supposed to take the officer's word, not the inmate, but they'll believe an inmate over an officer," she said. "If the inmates don't like you, they create stories about you."

Croom, now an armed security guard at a local casino, and the other former guard both came to the North Las Vegas facility with prior prison experience. Croom spent four years as a prison guard in Mississippi, and the other individual worked in a Nevada men's prison for eight years.

Both complained that the women's prison didn't adequately train its corrections officers.

"We did a week of report writing in Mississippi," Croom said. "Here, it was just four hours, and there wasn't one report written in class. There was nothing written in class so a person could tell what they did wrong. The class was rush, rush. It was a hurry-up class.

"They would go over the tests the day before they were handed out. You knew in advance what the questions would be."

Croom said there also was no agility training for officers and that many who were hired were out of shape.

"A lot of the supervisors did not have corrections experience," he added.

Douglas, however, countered that the training was approved by Peace Officers Standards and Training in August 1997, a month before the facility opened. He said the training methods were deemed acceptable by the state prison system.

He added that the training methods are tailored for the North Las Vegas facility because there is an emphasis on women's issues.

Croom and the other former guard further alleged that the prison:

* Violated inmates' civil rights by failing to provide them with a meal if that lunch or dinner overlapped their visitation with friends and relatives.

* Promoted individuals with no prior prison experience over others who had worked at other corrections facilities.

* Approved so many bed moves by inmates that guards didn't have accurate rosters to tell them which prisoners belonged in particular cells.

* Often gave inmates the same punishment regardless of the severity of the offense.

* Cut off sensors along the outer perimeter of the prison because they kept going off falsely.

Douglas termed each of those allegations as inaccurate.

"Our inmates are given five visitations a week, two during the day and three in the evenings," Douglas said. "We also give them liberal visiting schedules, so they can still eat their meals.

"The (former) employees you're talking to don't have any perspective on these things."

Meanwhile, the Nevada Attorney General's office continues to investigate allegations that prison guards had sex with inmates. Bob Harmon, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, declined to discuss details of the investigation.

But Douglas said those charges also were untrue.

"The bottom line is we have no evidence that sexual contact has occurred between officers and inmates," he said. "There's nothing to pursue."

Croom said he knew of one former guard who resigned after he was caught mailing a package with his name on it that was addressed to one of the inmates.

The other former officer said she was unaware of sexual contact between guards and inmates. But she said there were some guards, including herself, who had friendly relationships with inmates who they knew in the community before they were imprisoned.

"Just because you get to talking with an inmate doesn't mean anything is going on," she said. "But they started monitoring the guards using other guards."

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