Laurels & lances: Looking out and letting down
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Laurel: To recycling. Everyone knows it’s better to reuse than to let something go to waste. That’s not just true of paper and plastic. It also applies to technology.
On a visit to Acrisure Stadium, Leechburg Area School District security guard Mike Kapustik noticed there were unused metal detectors in a storage area. Rather than shrug them off, Kapustik asked about them.
Four of the standalone, walk-through detectors are being delivered to the school district.
“I can’t say enough good things about our firm, Bramlet Security,” Superintendent Tiffany Nix said. “In times where budgeting is a concern and safety is always our top priority, this forward-thinking from our guard really made a difference. We truly appreciate it.”
It’s also a credit to the stadium leadership for seeing a way to take something that wasn’t being utilized at the athletic facility and put it to use in the community.
Lance: To dereliction of duty. On Tuesday, a former Westmoreland County jail guard pleaded guilty to assaulting an inmate in 2022.
Brian Prinkey, 26, becomes the latest public official to plead gulity to or be convicted of a crime in the area.
In this instance, Prinkey conspired with two other inmates — Vincent T. Green, 32, of New Kensington and Nicholas Hayes, 27, of Mt. Pleasant — who beat the victim in his cell. Prinkey used a control panel to open the door to the cell and ignored calls for help. He pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit simple assault and official oppression. Green and Haynes pleaded to simple assault last year.
The assault victim was awaiting trial on charges of rape of a child. While that might prompt a kind of righteous indignation and plays into stereotypes about prison assaults, it isn’t an excuse.
Everyone awaiting trial is innocent until proven guilty. If a corrections officer cannot accept that, there is no place for them in a guard’s uniform.