A wish list item for McKean County Jail is finally becoming a reality next week with the scheduled delivery of a full-body scanner.
“The body scanner is scheduled for delivery Jan. 14 with installation scheduled Jan. 16,” said McKean County Commissioner Chairman Tom Kreiner.
It’s been a long time coming, law enforcement officials indicated.
“I have been trying to get a full-body scanner into the jail for several years,” said Sheriff Dan Woods, who is the warden of the jail. “I believe it was 5 years ago I had a demonstration at the jail and I have been asking for it regularly ever since.”
District Attorney Stephanie Vettenburg-Shaffer expressed her gratitude for the purchase, saying Woods began sounding the alarm about a decade ago, “since fentanyl came into our area. And he is right for insisting on the jail having one. Each day that has passed, the jail staff has been at risk.”
Woods said currently, corrections officers must search everyone who is admitted to the jail by hand, causing concerns about the safety of employees.
“I don’t really want to get into the graphic details, but a body scanner will greatly reduce contraband that could be smuggled into the jail, making it a safer environment for the staff and other inmates,” the sheriff said.
The county was able to obtain a grant to enable the purchase of the Tek84 Intercept machine, tek84.com/intercept/.
“This is an upright machine that the individual stands inside,” Woods explained. There’s more to it than a metal detector; it’s a stationary platform inside a booth, like the Transportation Security Administration uses in an airport.
What sort of things have been found on suspects when searched at the jail? Woods gave a brief list: “We have seen knives, drugs — marijuana, cocaine, various types of pills, meth, heroin, fentanyl. All of these pose a risk to the corrections officer due to the unknowns of what they could be.”
Illegal drugs are obviously not regulated by any safety administration, and no one knows what they might be mixed with.
“The corrections officers do take precautions, but contact with certain drugs, even on the skin, could be deadly or at a minimum, make the individual sick,” the sheriff said.
Shaffer said, “We cannot wait until a guard or inmate suffers an overdose — a very real threat that has lingered for the last several years. This threat is foreseeable, avoidable and unnecessary.”
Woods explained, “Having this scanner will provide the corrections officers the ability to scan a new commit or someone returning from work release or community service immediately upon entry into the facility, to make sure there is nothing under their clothes, where it could be missed by a pat down.”
It will prove safer for the inmates as well. Woods said contraband would be found before an inmate might try to swallow it, or hide it within a body cavity, both of which would be detrimental to their health.
In Shaffer’s opinion, getting a scanner should have been treated as a county emergency years ago.
“We have had countless incidents of arrestees smuggling drugs into the jail and we have prosecuted those that have been caught,” she said. “In 2022, defendant Walter ‘Ghost’ Dennis was charged with taking fentanyl into the McKean County Jail. He was convicted after a jury trial and the Superior Court recently affirmed his conviction. But his case is not unique.
“Sadly, this is not a rare event,” she continued. “Prior to that case and since, more drugs or contraband have been smuggled into the jail by arrestees — placing jail guards and other inmates at risk of overdose. I am glad Sheriff Woods’ relentless requests have paid off. This is a huge asset to the jail.”
