Perhaps his belief now is that no one saw it coming?

When COVID-19 began its evolution to a pandemic and social distancing and quarantining became a way to slow its spread, people expressed concern for those incarcerated in federal and state prisons, county jails, and ICE detention centers. Unlike those on the outside, these people are at a decided disadvantage when it comes to these preventative practices, so it was proposed that those whose sentences were just short of being completed, those only sitting in jails waiting for their day in court for an alleged nonviolent crime because they could not make bail, and those who had been convicted of minor nonviolent crimes be released with provisions made, such as house arrest, for those who would have to return.

 Like what has been done in the case of Paul Manafort, a convicted felon.

But when that proposal was made in Massachusetts, Bristol County Sheriff, Thomas Hodgson, with more than half of his inmates yet to have their day in court, and according to common law are still considered innocent as they have yet to be found guilty, was dead set against the idea.

He consistently claims that he has created conditions in his facilities that can stave off the virus.

When it came to the proposal to release some ICE detainees in his ICE detention unit to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 there, he opposed that as well.

His official response covering all facilities was,

“We have no current plans to release inmates in the manners you described. We continue to monitor the Corona virus situation; it is fluid and changing daily.”

The sheriff said he has the capability to keep prisoners safe from the pandemic, claiming

 “We’ve not had any circumstances with any inmates here indicating [that they may have the corona virus].”

While explaining that if there were any inmates in his jails who had or were carrying the virus, they would bring it out into the larger community, he seemed to have ignored that his staff, as well as he himself, were leaving and re-entering his facilities on a daily basis and could be exposed to the virus when off-duty while bringing it back with them when on.

And, while making this claim, three staff members at his facility had tested positive for Covid-19, and, obviously, these three had, like all other staff, left and re-entered his facilities on a regular basis.

His mantra became that he had a handle on the virus and was preventing it from entering his jails and the ICE detention unit housed on his North Dartmouth campus.

However, conditions may not have been as clean and manageable as the sheriff had been claiming, especially as he justified giving his staff a well deserved raise because,

“My staff has to come into a very challenging environment, and we’ve actually asked them to do quite a bit more to minimize the risks of people contracting the disease in here. They have to go through decontamination and when they go home the first thing they have to do is wash their clothes. So, these are really are sort of over-and-above precautionary things that they otherwise wouldn’t have had to do. And certainly, dealing with the inmates and the new protocols and things that we have, I felt that they were definitely worthy of it.”

“The ongoing efforts of our team and attention to detail regarding the historic challenge before us have been amazing. Provided we remain mindful and vigilant with our social distancing and personal sanitation, both here and in the community, we can reach our shared goal of preventing our inmate population, us, and our families from becoming exposed to and infected by COVID-19.”

 “So far we don’t have any COVID-19 cases, knock on wood, in regards to our inmates and detainees. We hopefully won’t have any, but we’ll see. We’ve asked them to take extra precautions and disciplines, and we’re grateful for that.”

Bristol County for Correctional Justice, an ad hoc committee of local citizens concerned about conditions in the facilities run by Hodgson, has in its possession a letter from 47 inmates listing the unhealthy conditions that the sheriff claims do not exist, a list that contradicts the sheriff’s claim that everything is just fine.

His having to modify his assessment somewhat from totally safe to “an environment that is dangerous”, would imply the direction is not good.

In spite of this, however, he continues to play tough, and this resulted in U.S. District Court Judge William Young charging Sheriff Hodgson with “deliberate indifference” toward the people in his custody.

While using the term “Criminal illegal aliens” to subliminally implant a certain image in the minds of the people of the community, he totally misrepresents these people at every turn, going so far as to release a public information tool he calls the “Prisoner Release Alert System” on Facebook and his website that lists what he claims are criminal charges and convictions against individual immigration detainees, implying these are who is being released when, not only not connecting any names to the alleged crimes as Massachusetts law governs the way criminal records are publicized, but knowing no one can verify his claims.

He also hopes that people will assume this is who the court and advocates want released, when, in actuality, release is for those, as I said earlie whose sentences were just short of being completed, those only sitting in jails waiting for their day in court for an alleged nonviolent crime because they could not make bail, and those who had been convicted of minor nonviolent crimes with provisions made, such as house arrest, for those who would have to return.

Either he is purposely lying to the people of Bristol County to create the fear of “Others”, or he is deliberately releasing people not included in the court decision or the advocacy of social justice groups and the inmates’ attorneys as a way to thumb his nose at them.

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But, the sheriff had his defense.

His actions are totally innocent and justified, while those who criticize him are pushing a political agenda.

After a “riot” at his ICE detention facility, the sheriff explained away those demanding an independent investigation of what led up to the incident and how it was handled because the detainees are,

“the same people who have been calling their attorneys and advocate groups, saying that they need to be released because they’re going to get contaminated because it’s too dangerous in here.”

And, he asks, “Why do you guys keep listening to inmates who lie to you and then take it as gospel?”

Yet while claiming that those involved in the altercation were opposed to being tested, he has chosen to ignore that inmates, advocates, and lawyers have been demanding testing for two months prior to May 1 when the sheriff told detainees to gather their possessions and report for testing.

Demands for testing went back to the beginning of March, so the testing was not the issue, but the timing, speed, and the need to pack their things for removal were, with the Detainees’ opposition stemming from the sudden need to be tested quickly, the possibility of being removed from their unit where the tests could already have been done, and being placed in solitary confinement.

Now it has been released that six Bristol County Sheriff’s Office staff members and nine inmates in the general population have tested positive for COVID-19, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported one positive test among its detainees.

In spite of these new numbers coming from a place where it just would not happen, the sheriff’s defense is to veer from any responsibility on his part to attempting to distract by giving the impression that the only negative would be the bad attitude his critics have toward those upon whom we all rely during this pandemic.

 “The COVID pandemic has taken a toll on our country. In the middle of this national epidemic, essential workers like those in corrections, law enforcement, and health care have joined others at grocery stores, gas stations and other places in reporting to work to keep our country going. They deserve an enormous amount of credit.”

And they are getting it.

Releasing eligible inmates and detainees is a separate issue.

When he gave his staff that raise, his attempt was to paint his critics as being anti-staff when in reality no one was criticizing the staff, but, rather, were consistently and clearly criticizing him.

Now he is pushing those upon whom we rely and those to whom we show respect in front of him to take the bullet.

There are 11 groups, Bristol County for Correctional Justice, Unidad Latina en Accion, the Coalition for Social Justice, the New Bedford Chapter of the NAACP, the Community Economic Development Center, the New Bedford Immigrant Support Network, the Business Innovation Center, Centro Communitario de Trabajadores, the Episcopal City Mission, Marching Forward, and the Southeastern Mass Labor Council, calling on Sheriff Thomas Hodgson to resign.

The local newspaper, with a cozy relationship with the sheriff and which often credits a former reporter who is now the sheriff’s spokesperson with being a contributing writer, in its reporting of this demand has labeled the coalition as a “progressive group” playing along with the sheriff’s political agenda of having any critic being a political enemy as the sheriff, along with being a conservative, is the co-chair of the state’s Trump reelection committee.

According to this group, the decision of U.S. District Court Judge William Young that called Hodgson’s treatment of his inmates “deliberate indifference” toward the people in his custody that violates the 8th Amendment’s proscription against “cruel and unusual” punishment

“along with calls for investigations by our entire Congressional delegation and the State Senate, into the recent violent confrontation of the Sheriff against defenseless people detained in the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) facility in Dartmouth, demonstrate that the Sheriff is clearly unfit to manage the Bristol County House of Correction. It is clear that the Sheriff has broken the law and has placed the lives of those in his care in danger. Sheriff Hodgson must resign immediately to allow authorities to implement lawful measures to ensure the safe and efficient care of federal detainees and people in jail in the county jails.”

Remember, this sheriff has a high recidivism rate, claims all his inmate woes are based on 80% of them having a drug addiction while he has no effective program to deal with that, and leads the county jails in the state in the number of suicides.

Whereas he has claimed there was no need to test inmates or release those who could reasonably be released, he certainly has to admit now that he had been wrong and should have given up his tough guy image for caution, and will do that now.

In spite of being told ways to avoid the virus spreading in his facilities, he steadfastly held that he, and he alone, would be the one able to stave off the virus by doing things his way and his alone.

Unless he is that kid who, in spite of all the evidence, desperately clings to a belief in Santa Claus even as it is obvious he should just stop, perhaps he will now close the barn door before all the horses get out.

Or resign unless he has the temerity to acknowledge his error and rectify it.