By Alan Sorensen
Got any friends youd like to send to jail?
Thursday will be the best chance Hill County residents have had in years to send their best buddies to a real lockup when the Havre Optimist Club holds its Spend a Night in Jail fund-raiser. The activity, which will raise funds for a variety of the Optimist Clubs community youth programs, is being held in cooperation with the Hill County Sheriffs Office and jail staff.
Potential inmates can view the newly constructed justice center (and the jail cells they could end up occupying) during the facilitys grand opening Wednesday and Thursday.
The ribbon cutting will be Wednesday at 10 a.m., Undersheriff Don Brostrom said. Tours will begin immediately, with the first group going through at 10 and the second group at noon. Afternoon tours Wednesday will be at 1, 2, and 3 p.m. Thursday tours will be held every hour on the hour beginning at 10 a.m., with the last tour group going through from 3-4 p.m.
For just $20, Optimists will arrest and transport designated suspects Thursday to the new detention center located on West Second Street. The event will run from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., with Optimists making their arrests hourly from 6-10 p.m.
The proceeds will go to our youth activities and toward updating the (Optimist) park, Optimist President Garrett Edmonds said. Its something people have done in the past.
The arrests will be carried out from warrant cards filled out by the suspects friends and accompanied by the $20 arrest fees. The warrant cards are available at First Security Bank and the Hill County Sheriffs Office. They must be completed and turned in with the $20 fees at either location by noon Thursday.
People who expect to be arrested during the day can purchase $10 insurance cards which will serve much the same purpose as get-out-of-jail cards in Monopoly. Each insurance card is good for just one arrest, Brostrom said.
The card is good for one-time-use only, Brostrom said, so those with several friends may want to purchase more than one. There will be limited insurance cards printed, so buy early!
All arrestees will be booked into the new Hill County Detention Center. They will receive fingerprint cards and booking sheets complete with photographs. After being booked in, arrestees will be assigned housing units (cells) that they must stay in for one hour, unless they choose to bond out for $5.
Arrestees also can arrange to have their fellow inmates transferred to other areas of the detention center, such as maximum security, for a small fee.
Brostrom said the warrants should contain the suspects name, what time the suspect should be arrested, and where the suspect will be at that time.
Brostrom and Edmonds said the fund-raiser will serve two purposes, raising funds for area youth activities and helping detention officers get used to the new facility and get the kinks ironed out of their routines. It also may attract more public participation during the new facilitys grand opening activities.
From our end of it, it will be for training and testing of the facility, Brostrom said. It benefits everyone, basically, and I think it will be a lot of fun.
Everybodys pretty excited, Edmonds said. They think its going to be a good time, a fun fund-raiser.
