Hispanic jail inmates protest lack of Spanish TV

Monday, March 16, 1998 | 9:36 a.m.

Seventy-seven inmates signed a letter accusing jail officials of discrimination for ignoring requests for television in Spanish.

"Half the population are Latinos," inmate Leonardo Murillo, accused in a kidnapping, told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "They want to have their own TV to watch in Spanish.

"A deputy will take the TV away. They tell us we have to watch English TV because we're in America. It's been two months since we had Spanish TV."

Sheriff's Capt. Don Means said he's exploring the feasibility of getting a Spanish-language channel into the jail, but is facing some problems.

He said the jail doesn't have cable TV, just an antenna on the roof that has trouble pulling in Reno's lone Spanish station. The jail also has a shortage of sets.

"We have a committee working on it to see how we can improve," Means said.

Inmate Brandon Talbert, jailed for investigation of murder, said the lack of Spanish channels is unfair to Hispanic inmates who cooperate with jail personnel.

"We feel we deserve it; we're participating (with jail policy)," he said.

Talbert, who's half Hispanic, claimed deputies recently took away a television set after objecting to sex on a Spanish channel.

"They said the music and dancing showed too much body," he said.

But sheriff's Sgt. Bob Towery said inmates are forgetting that television in jail is a privilege, not a right.

"If there's a problem in a housing unit, the TV privilege can be taken away from them," he said.

Towery said inmates also are exaggerating the number of Hispanics in the jail because the vast majority are white.