About an hour into a Wednesday afternoon media tour of the Pierce County Jail, officials led reporters to a high-security cell block that is the subject of a federal lawsuit over jail conditions, particularly sewage backflows that allegedly persisted for years.
Officials with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office had gone back and forth over whether news reporters would be allowed to see the area due to the ongoing litigation. What could be seen from where corrections deputies were posted to monitor the people housed here was a theme of the day’s tour — it is clearly an aging jail that could use improvement, but if there were any glaring health, safety or security issues, they were not visible.
Sheriff Keith Swank recently invited The News Tribune and a news photographer, Steve Hickey, to see the county jail after Swank suggested it was worth an “investigative story” related to “the terrible condition it is in from decades of deferred maintenance,” and referring to an ongoing lawsuit against the jail…