Q&A
Council Member Holden questions storage conditions and staffing issues in the Sheriff's Office
2:10:02
·
3 min
Council Member Robert F. Holden questions Ingrid Simonovic, President of the New York City Deputy Sheriffs' Association, about the dangerous conditions of cannabis storage and staffing issues within the Sheriff's Office. Simonovic describes health complaints from staff exposed to stored cannabis and expresses concerns about mismanagement and the need for more qualified personnel.
- Holden inquires about air quality checks and health department involvement in the storage facilities.
- Discussion touches on increased workload and extended shifts for deputy sheriffs since cannabis legalization.
- Simonovic criticizes recent hires as unqualified and not beneficial to the agency's growth and efficiency.
Robert F. Holden
2:10:02
Thank you.
2:10:02
Thank you, Cher.
2:10:04
Question on, you said where the pod is stored in a warehouse, it's dangerous, right?
2:10:11
The conditions aren't good.
2:10:13
Tell me what what are they experiencing, who people who go in there.
2:10:17
You're you're certainly officers that go in there.
2:10:20
What what what are they complaining about?
2:10:22
The the air, the dizziness,
Ingrid Simonovic
2:10:26
Well, it it recently changed, but I at the beginning, we used to store the cannabis in the vehicles.
2:10:33
We used to store them in office.
2:10:35
They used to be everywhere.
2:10:38
I know at one point it was close to where the order is, which I consider civilians.
2:10:43
And when they started complaining, sheriff Miranda told the guy that was in charge of evidence will put it in your office, put it everywhere, just get it away from there so the order is not complaining.
2:10:53
So at one point, I went to his office, and he was sitting in bags in bags of contraband.
2:11:02
And he was complaining about coughing blood.
2:11:07
A lot of people complains of headaches, nauseous.
2:11:10
And when they stay away from the office for maybe a day or 2, then they feel better.
2:11:15
But when they come back, they feel superior in the same system.
Robert F. Holden
2:11:18
Has any agency, the health department, anybody check the air in that location?
Ingrid Simonovic
2:11:26
So that's that's one of the retaliation when he started sending emails and requesting all that stuff.
2:11:31
He he got retaliated on, and he eventually got moved from that agents from that off is.
2:11:37
We did file multiple complaints, a few whippage, pinch came and filed, got our complaints versus the NCIB.
Robert F. Holden
2:11:46
Now you you know the pressures on it on because since the Marijuana, a cannabis became legal.
2:11:54
There's a lot of pressure on the sheriff's office.
2:11:56
So you understand that he's he's getting pressure from one end, and you guys are getting obviously more work
Alaina Turnquist
2:12:03
Yes.
Robert F. Holden
2:12:04
And do you think, you know, I I've called for the mayor to to double the size of the sheriff's office because you you can see that they're being stretched thinly.
2:12:13
And many of them, you said they're working now 5 days a week, 6 days.
2:12:17
In the past, they used to work 4 days.
Ingrid Simonovic
2:12:19
Yes.
2:12:20
And
Robert F. Holden
2:12:20
so now people are working.
2:12:22
Are they working any 24 hour shifts?
Ingrid Simonovic
2:12:24
You could work.
2:12:25
You could work.
2:12:26
Now you work in 5 days.
2:12:28
He wanted to have 5 days 8 hours tour, but now you work in 5 days.
2:12:32
10, 12, 14, 16 hours, and sometimes even longer to it.
2:12:36
Because when you have an arrest, you have to stay with that arrest until you completed.
2:12:40
And I'm I'm with you.
2:12:42
We need more members.
2:12:43
But my the problems that we have is that with the mismanagement, everybody that he's bringing aboard, it's now being beneficial for us.
2:12:51
You he brought so far, he has brought up close to twelve people.
2:12:56
They're not capable of doing the background investigation to onboard more members.
2:13:01
They're not capable of training anybody because they don't even have the qualification.
2:13:06
Mister Perez, who is gonna be the chief of investigation.
2:13:09
He doesn't even have a background in an investigation.
2:13:12
So what are we doing here?
2:13:14
You bring in all these people that are pretty much useless to our agency and our department.
2:13:19
If you were to onboard people that will collab cooperate to our growth and us doing more efficient and doing more work by all means, I hope that we could double triple our size as soon as possible because we desperately need it in order to be able to do everything that we need to do in the city.
Robert F. Holden
2:13:39
All right.
2:13:40
Thank you.
2:13:40
Thank you, Cher.
