The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado has filed a lawsuit against the El Paso County Sheriff’s office claiming inmates at the El Paso County Jail were denied masks and proper preventive measures to slow the spread of Covid 19. At one point more than a thousand inmates contracted Covid at the facility. Sheriff Bill Elder was the only defendant named in the case. The ACLU claims Elder showed “deliberate indifference” during the outbreak. The suit alleges masks were not readily available to all inmates, and new prisoners were not properly separated from those that were sick. The ACLU also alleges more than 15 million dollars given to the department to help fight the pandemic was used for projects that helped to protect department personnel more than the prisoners.
