As the leader of our community Sheriff Dave Favro is supposed to hold a certain standard. He is supposed to be a man of integrity and honor. He is supposed to help keep our county prosperous, safe, and clean. Supposed to. However, within the last few years he has swept many problems under the rug and hid them from the public. In many interviews with his friends at News Channel 5 he has stated his department does not have a harassment problem. This is false. As I'm sure many have seen, the department has faced 6 lawsuits from Sheriff's Department female employees who have claimed sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and retaliation. I am one of those women. The things I endured and witnessed in the 4 years I worked in Favro's department were heinous. Female COs who work in his department were subjected to ongoing harassment by fellow officers and sergeants. Constant unwanted touching, shoving genital regions in our faces, threats of r*pe in the parking lot, threats of violence if we did not give in to demands, purposely being set up to get hurt on the job so we would want to quit. Sergeants were using their title to coerce officers to have sexual relations with them and if rejected would set up fights on their floors, putting the officer in danger. County computers in the Intake area were being used to look up female inmates and officers on social media where officers and sergeants would discuss their bodies and what they would like to do to them. All of the computer usage could be monitored, but nobody did so. Officers were not the only ones being subjected to this disgusting behavior. Being inmates means they cannot consent to any type of sexual relations. This does not matter to certain officers and sergeants in our county jail. A sergeant was banned from being able to step foot in the female housing unit because he had inappropriate relations with an inmate. Being that this was not only wrong, but illegal, said sergeant should have been terminated and had charges pressed against him. Obviously the facility knew what he had done since they were the ones who stated he could not enter the housing unit any longer until that particular inmate was gone, so why does he still work there? I had female inmates complain to me numerous times about certain male officers trying to grope them in the closets, trying to get their phone numbers, threatening them, asking them for hugs, etc. This was all reported to HR and the sheriff. Favro's own HR department spent 5 weeks conducting a thorough investigation into our complaints while the officers and sergeants who were accused of this bad behavior were put on PAID leave. After giving Favro a 30 page summary of their investigation where all parties complained about were found guilty and termination was suggested, Favro allowed all but one to come back to work. The one who was not allowed back was allowed to resign, keeping his vacation time, clean record, and retirement. Undersheriff Robert Craig was then sent into our briefing where he threatened our whole shift with termination if we talked about the sexual harassment again. Since then 2 more lawsuits have been added by female inmates who claim sexual assault by staff. Harassment isn't the only problem in Favro's facility. Another 3 lawsuits have been brought forward by male inmates claiming refusal of medical care and/or excessive use of force. In the 4 years I was there the jail has lost over 10 female employees (keep in mind the female to male ratio is maybe 1 to every 10 so losing 10 in 4 years is a big percentage) and has gone through around 9 female nurses, due to a variety of reasons some including sexual harassment also. You would think a facility would have to have some type of medical staff on at all times, but ours does not. In our facility we have untrained, unlicensed officers passing out medications to all the inmates in the jail, some even narcotics. If a fight happens and inmates get hurt they are escorted to the medical office and given medical supplies to tend to their own wounds unless the wound is really bad then they would be transported to the hospital pending sergeant (who rarely has medical knowledge) approval. In the past 2 years our facility has seen 2 inmates die in custody. After the first inmate death where it was ruled the jail had been negligent in not making sure proper protocol was followed with the doctor, one would have thought the sheriff would have stepped in to make sure medical was there at all times to prevent something like that from happening again. This was not the case, however. In December our facility saw another inmate die in custody due to not receiving proper medical care. There was no medical staff in the building when the inmate began complaining of pain and by morning he had been found unconscious on the floor. Upon investigation, the inmate had not been under constant watch, contrary to what the sheriff told the news in his interview about the death. A handful of officers have actually received reprimands for not performing their security checks properly on this inmate prior to his death. This may lead to lawsuit number 12 against the department. 11 lawsuits. The money our county has to put out in legal fees for all the lawsuits is mounting. The number of victims of assault and harassment in this facility are mounting. And what have we heard from our sheriff about any of this? He continues stating there is no problem. He continues to brush everything under the rug and try to keep the public in the dark about what is going on. He is the leader so everything falls to him. He is responsible for everything that happens. He is responsible for every inmate death that happens in his facility. In an interview instead of trying to come up with ways to prevent any more deaths from happening, he actually stated he expected that number to rise. Instead of holding the culprits of the harassment and assaults responsible by terminating them, he allowed them to come back as if nothing happened and they are continuing their behavior with inmates and officers still. It is hard being a leader, especially if you rarely step foot in your own facility. I worked there 4 years and I had not once ever met or even seen the sheriff during that time. I am not alone in that. A sheriff should be in his facility all the time, should know his employees, should know how the facility works, what the problems are, and help fix them. A sheriff should not claim false ignorance to the problems in his facility. Sheriff Favro is responsible for every inmate who gets assaulted, for every officer who gets harassed. Yet he does not hold himself accountable and continues to deny any problems, allows them to continue under his watch, does nothing to help the victims. Others have called on him for his resignation and he has declined. He would prefer to keep his pride over making sure his county and employees are safe. This is not what a good leader does. I am asking that we as a community step up and call for Sheriff Favro to resign. After over 2 decades of being sheriff this job is no longer for him. It seems he has nothing more to bring to the table to better our community. If he can't protect the women in his facility then I hope we as a county can by bringing in a new sheriff who is actually up to the challenge of being there for us when they are needed. We must ask ourselves, do we want to see more women get abused and harassed? Do we want to see our county pay more legal fees as the number of lawsuits rise? Do we want our county to be known for sexual harassment and assault? Do we want inmates to keep dying in our facility due to lack of medical care? Or do we want better? If you feel we need a new leader in our county and we need to do better please sign this petition. I do plan on bringing it to our legislatures. Thank you.