Stewart County Sheriff Frankie Gray talked with the Standard after his night in jail, which made Nashville News after being posted on Facebook. Gray decided to spend the night in a pod with inmates after receiving complaints about it being too cold. We received an email from Media Coordinator Paulette Redman, who told us, “The Sheriff spent the night in pod #180 with approximately 16 inmates. The Detention Center has some problems with the heating units in a couple of pods. Correction Officers are monitoring the temperature often to make sure the temperature does not get too cold. The temperature has been able to be maintained in the mid 60’s. Sock hats and long-sleeve shirts have been provided for the inmates in two pods as an extra precaution. Monday night, January 26, which was one of the coldest of the year, about six degrees, the Sheriff decided to make sure for himself the pod was reasonably warm. He went to the pod around 8:30 p.m., stayed and slept in the pod until about 5:30 am.”
Gray said he’s seen some people say he did it because it’s an election year and he said, “I ain’t worried about that. I don’t have to do that to run a campaign. I did it because people hired me to do this job.” He said there were some who worried the crap out of him about the heat so he wanted to be able to say he stayed in there. Gray said, “I did it because of the complaints. I did it to see myself. I feel like now I can tell them, hey, I slept in there and it’s fine. But, you know, Danny, it’s a block building with a metal roof. It kind of takes on the characteristics of your outside weather.”
Since Gray brought up the election year thing, we had to ask, since we hadn’t heard officially, “Can you say, are you officially running again?” He confirmed, “Yeah, I’m running again. I’m going to put my announcement out in the next week or so I just haven’t done it.”
THE STAY: We asked Gray some questions about his stay, first was, “Whatever gave you the idea of even spending the night in the jail?” Gray said, “We’ve had some issues with the heating over there. It’s just the design of the jail and the heating units. I went back there and checked, and I had them do temperature checks. Finally, I just said, you know, I’m going to go back there and see myself and see how cold it is to sleep in there, and I can either tell these people, it’s too cold, we’re going to have to do something, or it’s fine.” Gray said he didn’t get the idea from anywhere else, as far as he knows, no other sheriff has stayed all night in their jail. Gray said he gave the inmates the option of moving but they didn’t want to move up front because they wouldn’t be able to see the TV. Gray added about the night he chose, “I waited until … I knew. I saw on the news it was going to be the coldest night of the year so far, and I said, I’m going to do it.”…