PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) - A DVD explaining the rules and regulations for inmates in the Jackson County jail gives convicted former four-term Sheriff Mike Byrd a daily presence there.
The DVD starts with Byrd introducing himself as the county’s chief law enforcement officer. A narrator then explains what is expected of prisoners, The Sun Herald (https://bit.ly/1gNT9hT) reported.
Officials are working to replace the DVD, which must be shown daily to inmates, Chief Deputy Ray Bates said.
“I had asked if there was any way we can get Mike Byrd off of this video we have playing now,” he said. “I asked if it could be edited out, but again, I’m told it can’t be done, or if it can, nobody knows how to do it so we are stuck with what we’ve got until the new one is in. We hope to have the new one in a week.”
Byrd is serving six months’ home confinement on federal charges of witness tampering and witness intimidation. Prosecutors dropped 30 other state charges, 28 of them felonies.
Mary D. Smith, jailed on charges of possession of a controlled substance and a probation violation, wrote to The Sun Herald about the DVD. She said she finds the DVD irritating because she considers Byrd a hypocrite.
“There are men and women in here who have committed lesser crimes than Mr. Byrd, yet are facing actual prison time,” she wrote. “I myself am facing five years because of two non-violent felonies. Yet, Mr. Byrd receives probation and six months’ house arrest. . As an elected official, especially as the sheriff of Jackson County, Mike Byrd should be held to higher standards or at the very least the same standards as the average citizen.
Byrd was sentenced to six months of home confinement and six months’ probation after pleading guilty to the federal charge, admitting he twice kicked in the groin a handcuffed and “unresisting” suspect in the theft of a county patrol car.
A state judge sentenced him last week to six months of home confinement, to be served at the same time as the federal sentence, then three years of post-release supervision, for intimidating a witness. In exchange for that plea, state prosecutors dropped the other 30 charges.
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Information from: The Sun Herald, https://www.sunherald.com
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