May 1 will mark once year since Pottawattamie County Sheriff's Deputy Mark Burbridge was shot and killed at the jail after transporting a prisoner back from court.
Later this week, the jail will begin using a full body scanner for all inmates coming to or leaving the building in law enforcement custody. Sheriff Jeff Danker says the scanner is an added layer of security at the jail, but won't replace any of the current practices.
"I really think that will make a big difference in getting those really hard to locate items off of those individuals ,"Danker says. "It gives you a good comfort level that they're not bringing any contraband into the facility."
Danker says the scanner is a very a low dose X-ray system. "400 of these scans would equal one medical X-ray." At that level, Danker says federal standards allow a person to be scanned 1,000 times per year without risk of harm.
Burbridge and Deputy Pat Morgan were returning to the jail last May with Wesley Correa-Carmenaty from the courthouse, where he had just been sentenced to several decades in prison for manslaughter.
While it was never found, Danker believes Correa-Carmenaty was able to unlock his handcuffs with a hidden key while in the back of the sheriff’s transport van. Correa-Carmenaty attacked Burbridge before gaining control of a deputy's gun. He shot and killed Burbridge and wounded deputy Morgan before driving away in the van.
"If we would have had this system at that time, there's probably a good possibility if there was something in his hair or somewhere else on his body, we would have had a good shot of getting that (key) off of him."