COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (KMTV) — Council Bluffs officials are expressing outrage after employees from the Dodge County Sheriff's Office released an inmate in a parking lot on West Broadway without first alerting local authorities.
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Police Chief Matt Davis said Christopher Lard was dropped off near 35th Street and West Broadway while still wearing his neon green inmate jumpsuit. Police allege he immediately began creating a disturbance.
"I am absolutely disheartened and frankly disgusted that another law enforcement agency would handle an individual in this manner and drop them off in our community with absolutely no support or advanced coordination with local resources," Davis said.
City authorities say they have received reports of inmates from other jurisdictions being dropped off in Council Bluffs, but this is the first time they have been able to verify a report.
"He just scared me more than anything," said one witness captured in a police video.
Mayor Matt Walsh said the case is now in the hands of the city attorney and noted the financial burden placed on the city.
"The individual dropped off needed mental health care. The city of council bluffs took care of that which means the city of council bluffs had to pay that expense," Walsh said.
Walsh urges neighbors to immediately report any similiar incidents to police immediately. He also asks that witnesses do the best they can to document the situation if they suspect someone is being dropped off in the city without a "warm" handoff — another way of saying a coordinated transfer of someone in need of services.
Lard is from South Dakota, and Davis said Council Bluffs police have not discovered any connections between Lard and the Council Bluffs area. A recent court document from a Saunders County DUI case indicates that Lard had a bond agreement stipulating that he was not supposed to leave the State of Nebraska.
Davis emphasized the need for better coordination between law enforcement agencies and social service providers.
"What it really takes is for law enforcement is to partner with our social service providers. To have those plans, those communications, those partnerships, developing regional and bi-state solutions. As I said, we can't take our problems and throw them over the fence into our neighbor's yard. Good neighbors don't do that," the police chief said.
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