PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — Portsmouth City Council decided close the city jail with a close vote Tuesday night.
Council voted 4-3 in favor of the closure, which is proposed to happen by August. The vote is part of the latest development in a back-and-forth debate about the fate of the jail.
The vote came just hours after an attorney for Portsmouth Sheriff Michael Moore filed an emergency injunction to try to stop City Council’s consideration of the matter.
City Council decided to close the jail despite a court order in January that required the city to repair the jail instead of condemning and closing it. A judge has also previously urged both sides to try to work things out outside of court.
Speaking at the meeting Tuesday, Moore said the “human toll” on laid off Portsmouth deputies who staff the city jail is not being considered by council. He said Portsmouth deputies cannot just become employees at Hampton Roads Regional Jail, where Portsmouth also sends some inmates.
More than 100 deputies from the Portsmouth Sheriff’s Office packed council chambers ahead of the meeting Tuesday night.
The Portsmouth NAACP’s president also made a public plea Tuesday morning asking City Council to reconsider closing the jail. The NAACP’s statement says there are civil rights violations at the HRRJ.
“Our position is rooted in the protection of life and the human and civil rights that protect it and the HRRJ continues to be a serious threat to those protections. Sheriff Michael Moore, a long time law enforcement professional and leader, eliminated the practice of transferring individuals to the HRRJ specifically for those reasons and you should follow his courage and leadership in that regard.
“… This pattern of death and inhumane civil rights violations in the HRRJ must be addressed through drastic policy and behavior changes that the leadership of the HRRJ have failed to do. Voting to send more people to that jail should not only convict your conscience but it should influence your reason to vote no on closing the Portsmouth City Jail.”
James P. Boyd, president of Portsmouth NAACP chapter
At a work session one day earlier, City Attorney Solomon Ashby gave a nearly hour-long presentation to council on why the city believes it has the right to still close the jail despite the court order.
Ashby focused on language in a January court order that read: “The condemnation of the Civic Center Jail is denied. The City is ordered to maintain the Portsmouth City Jail in a manner that is secure and adequate for housing inmates so long as the facility is used as a jail by the City.”
Ashby indicated that does not require the city to keep the jail open in that spot.
The issue regarding the quality of the jail is years-old — City Council in 2012 said the Civic Center and jail were at or near the end of their usable lives — but the matter flared up again last July.
In July 2019, the city’s building and code official decided to condemn the city jail and the rest of the civic center after reportedly finding problems with the fire suppression system and unsanitary conditions.
The sheriff sued the city over the condemnation.
Months later, in December, the city filed a petition in court to move the jail’s inmates to the Hampton Roads Regional Jail. Portsmouth pays close to $6 million a year to have 250 beds available at that facility for its inmates.
This January, a Portsmouth judge ruled the city jail cannot be condemned and the city needed to complete repairs. At the conclusion of previous hearings, a judge urged both sides to try to work things out outside of court.
Tuesday’s resolution passed by City Council points to the Hampton Roads Regional Jail as an outlet for the displaced inmates should the city jail close.