Jerry Sheridan, Chief of Custody, MCSO
: Robert Leroy Cotton was the victim of a homicide inside the 4th Avenue jail on May 1, 2008. Sheriff Arpaio and I held a press conference the next day to alert the media of the inmate death.

A videotape of the homicide was later released to the victim's family attorney who we believe, wrongly released it to Channel 5 -- wrongly because this is an active capital murder case.

That video, shown on Channel 5 on two different nights, was technically enhanced by the TV station and does not accurately reflect what any detention officer could have observed on the night of the murder.

Channel 5 also wrongly suggested our detention officer abandoned his duty and ignored the scene. At no time during the 15 minute assault could our officer in the tower see or hear what was happening in that cell.

One inmate witnessed the attack but did not alert the officer. And the victim never hit the emergency button inside the cell. Only when the body was dragged out of the cell by the assailant, Peter Van Winkle, could the tower officer see what had transpired.

Other officers were immediately called. It took 3 1/2 minutes -- not 5 as reported -- for a team of detention officers to safely respond to a dangerous situation inside the housing unit.

Cameras in the housing unit captured portions of the incident. But Channel 5 manipulated the video to lead their viewers to believe the detention officer could zoom into the incident and the murder was in full view of the officer.

It was never in view of the officer. Investigators suspect -- that's sheriff's investigators -- that this may have been an Aryan Brotherhood ordered hit. But Channel 5 wrongly reported that an Aryan Brotherhood trial was possibly held minutes before the hit. Not true.

Here are the photos of these inmates. These were the other 3 inmates involved -- there were 5 inmates out at the time. Pablo Cruz, Hispanic; Larry Long, African American; and Jimmy Harrison, African American.

If you know anything about the Aryan Brotherhood, it is a white supremacist gang and there is no way on god's earth, that these Aryan Brotherhood members, white supremacists, would involve these inmates in any fashion.

After reviewing this incident we are certain that this homicide could not have been prevented. It was not a staffing issue. Not a training problem. Not an infrastructure issue. Not a classification problem or a camera issue.

You could have a police officer on every corner in every street in this city and still, there would be crime. The 4th Avenue jail is filled with violent offenders. Both of these men -- the assailant and the victim -- were housed here in maximum security custody, closed custody housing because of their violent institutional behavior.

The attorney, who wrongly released the video, is a sworn enemy of Sheriff Arpaio and this office and has made an unfortunate situation worse solely for political and monetary gain, three weeks before an election.

Lisa Allen:
Now let me also add, Jess Torres who was featured in the Channel 5 story as a so-called expert. We checked our logs and any visitor into this facility -- we have a log for who comes and goes. Jess Torres has never once been in this facility. He never saw the cell in question. Never saw what an officer in the tower could or could not have seen on that day in May.

Let me add this, I've been with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office for 30 years. The first 20 years of that career I spent in the law enforcement side, on the street. The last 10 years, I've been the chief over the jail system.

There is a huge difference, night and day, between policing on the street and policing inside a jail facility. And unless you have that ability to sit or stand in the officers shoes and take a look at what has transpired, it was reported that he was a law enforcement consultant with prior law enforcement experience -- unless you've actually had the hands on jail experience, you have no idea what it's like to work and live in that jail facility.

(Reporter: What was the officer in the tower doing?)

Sheridan:
The officer in the tower was performing his duties the way we trained him. He was on the phone, he was looking at the monitors, he was following his primary concern in that housing unit. He has two of his fellow officers that are there making their rounds and they're the two officers that have contact with the inmates. And don't forget these are closed custody, maximum security inmates.

He's watching them, paying attention to them. He's paying attention to the telephone when the telephone rings. He had called a training officer about a training issue. We keep officers up on their training every month and he had a question about his training and that's why he was on the phone.

He also was in radio contact with the two officers on the floor. Meanwhile, he's opening doors and buttons because he's responsible for that too. He was paying attention to his duties. The sheriff stands not behind him on that issue but in front of him. And he did nothing wrong. He was performing his functions.

You know what? I really get incensed about bringing this issue up again, after we originally came out with the story -- to bring it up again. I tell you, this officer is quite upset that this issue came up again because he feels bad that this happened on his watch to begin with.

(Reporter: Was the surveillance video on the officer's screen?)

We just took Channel 12 up there with their camera. You're going to see the small video screen that that officer -- he didn't have that camera on, on one of the six screens that he was looking at. The officers manually have to put these cameras onto their screen and he didn't.

(Reporter: Can you upgrade so you can see everything?)

That's one of the things that we've looked at. And that's one of the things -- I don't think that would have changed anything. And if that's what we're talking about, I don't want to try this. This is an active civil case. We're being sued over this issue also.

(Reporter: You're saying the guard didn't see it?)

What I'm saying is I want you to -- before you jump to that conclusion -- that you take a look at the video from Channel 12, that was up there.

You can talk to J.J. Hensley, a member of the media. He might give you his opinion on what that video monitor actually shows if he had it cued up, number one.

And number two, it's a very small piece of the video. Because the officer's line of sight is at an acute angle, you can not see in that cell. You can see the front door and you can see maybe a foot of the bunk.

(Reporter: How do you change how much they can see?)

Well first of all you can't change the $91-million facility. This is the state-of-the-art maximum security jail facility. We have inmates from all over the western United States come here because it is the most secure jail facility. I'm going to tell you, I don't know if you can ever prevent these kinds of incidents from happening when you're dealing with violent inmates.

(Reporter: Should the guards have noticed that two of the five inmates that were out had disappeared into the cell?)

That's not unusual behavior. If you want to go on what the officer was feeling - maybe a sense - the officer didn't feel that there was any tension in the air. The inmates exhibited normal behavior. Inmate Cotton, even though he had a cell on the lower level because of a medical issue, he did go up to use the restroom on the second level, so it was normal for him to go up the stairs and be in that area.

Inmate Van Winkle, it was in his cell that the incident occurred, so it was normal for him to be up there. You have three other inmates, these inmates are acting and behaving like nothing is going on. Actually, one of the inmates walked by the cell three times during the incident. He never tried to alert the officers. When he was questioned by the detectives, he said, "Hey man, it's none of my business."

That is normal behavior for inmates in this jail system, not to cooperate -- it's not my business, I'm leaving it alone, and I don't want any part of it.

(Reporter: In a perfect world, if we had cameras to see everything wouldn't that help to prevent this?)

In a perfect world, we'd have an officer for every cell, for every inmate. It's not a perfect world. We designed the facilities, we've used nationally recognized architects in secure jail facilities. We've used nationally recognized experts for staffing. We've had no problems with staffing. We have no problems with the design facility.

I don't care what you do, in this business, inmates are going to figure out a way to circumvent the security that you have built in, to circumvent the security the officers are providing them. And they are going to commit the crimes in jail just as much as they are outside the jail.

And there is no way -- this is very unfortunate, we're all very sad that this happened, we don't like that this happened -- but the reality of the business that the sheriff is in is housing inmates. This facility behind us has 2,000 maximum security inmates. They're not here because they're boy scouts. They are here -- and a lot of them are here in the closed custody housing units -- because they are violent criminals.

Allen:
I want to go on and answer that question as well. We looked at this investigation, as I assume you folks did, very carefully. There was a 500 page investigation. We tried to figure out how could we ever prevent that. Obviously, it's a question any jail facility that's responsible for what they do, is going to ask themselves. There was virtually no way that we could come up with, that we could have prevented this situation except one.

That would be to put all of our inmates in this facility in to 23-hour lockdown -- let them out one at a time, one hour at a time.

So your followed up question is, this happened in May, did you do that? No, we didn't do it and our plan is not to do it because had we done that, ACLU attorneys, middle ground attorneys, other civil attorneys would have come against the sheriff's office, as they often do, and say that we're violating inmate rights. We're in a no-win situation.

(Reporter: How does the officer in the tower choose who to watch and who is he responsible to watch?)

Sheridan:
Let me piggy back on what Lisa had to say, too. (Speaker was interrupted by sirens.) Lisa talked about the four hours out. Closed custody inmates, that's the highest classification level we have. We have some of those inmates that have zero inmate contact, almost zero officer contact.

They're not allowed out of there cell except but one hour a day by themselves. We have step-down pods because that's very psychologically damaging for people that are there too long. We make every attempt to take care of the mental health of these inmates. And we have step-down pods as their behavior, as they go on in behavior.

We review people that are in closed custody housing on a weekly basis. And we step them down into less restrictive housing. This housing unit, for example, had one inmate per cell. They're allowed four hours out. The next step down may be two inmates and maybe eight hours out.