This was a fairly negative article at first based on case law I researched in the law library at FCI Sheridan and other online articles. They all paint the same picture. However, they don't appear to raise an important question about county policy which I raised with Judith Lucke after she contacted me about this article. Every online source I've seen so far appears to blast Lucke as if she were solely responsible for leaving her gun unsecured in a staff locker room she knew to be cleaned by inmates, but none of them blast the county for letting inmates clean a locker room known to contain guns.
Lucke had her fair share of problems with the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office before a series of internal affairs investigations led to her termination. Suspiciously, all of those investigations began after she testified against a male deputy in a sexual harassment case. As a former inmate of the Multnomah County system, I believe that would have caused her to be viewed as a traitor by her fellow deputies. Her claims of basically being forced out after that are not far fetched.
Her first problem with the Internal Affairs Unit (IAU) began when an inmate escaped from her custody at a local hospital. The inmate disarmed her with charm before brandishing the knife and fork from his dinner tray, taking some of her possessions, and escaping. It was one of those cases you read to your cellmate for entertainment value during lockdown. Having been taken to the hospital by deputies myself, I couldn't imagine how anybody could overpower an armed escort as alleged in Lucke's case. She informed me that corrections deputies didn't carry guns when escorting inmates to hospitals back then. If true, that changes my opinion somewhat because they shouldn't have left a small female deputy alone unarmed with a much stronger male inmate outside the jail. Her superior agreed that county policy and a failure to train were moving forces behind the escape, so Lucke was ordered to receive additional training.
Other IAU investigations accused Lucke of failing to intervene on behalf of fellow deputies during use of force incidents and encouraging inmates to fight. To her credit, those allegations sound like they could have been levied against any number of deputies over the years. It wouldn't surprise me if sentiment against Lucke within the department reached a point that they decided to start enforcing their policies on her.
Her luck ran out after what she described as an emotionally taxing day during which her mind was elsewhere due to a death in her family. She left her gun behind when she went home for the day. She simply forgot to put it in her locker. She was terminated as a result. Seems like a logical outcome at first because leaving a gun where an inmate can get it cannot be tolerated. Lucke argued that she was being discriminated against and offered as proof two other cases of officers leaving guns unattended. Those cases actually resulted in guns being stolen, but they were left in vehicles outside the jail. I concluded that leaving a gun inside a jail is categorically different than leaving it in your car at home because if an inmate facing a lot of time finds that gun, there is a good chance he will try to shoot his way out. However, this led me to ask a question I don't see addressed elsewhere, why were inmates allowed to clean an area known to contain guns? Lucke's answer, "they had professional vetted cleaning crews. But, trying to save money, they opted for inmates to clean."
Conclusion
Inmates should never have been allowed to clean staff locker rooms at Multnomah County Inverness Jail in the first place.