This story is breaking and will continue to be updated as more information is known.
Shane Kitchen, interim director of the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, is stepping down effective April 1, sources familiar with the situation have told FITSNews.
Kitchen, who was hired in 2016 as deputy director, took over for outgoing director Ronaldo Myers in October 2021, who resigned after two officers were injured during a riot at the jail.
Myers served as director of the troubled detention center for almost four decades. Shortly after his retirement was announced in September, a report in the The Post and Courier revealed that neither Myers nor Kitchen were present during the day of the riot. Myers was missing in action and Kitchen was recovering from surgery, according to the report.
The jail has long been plagued by complaints of violence, understaffing and poor living conditions. It is not immediately clear if those issues are related to Kitchens’ decision to step down.
This wasn’t the first time Kitchen served as interim director of the jail. In March 2017, Myers resigned to take a job in Virginia but returned almost a year later and resumed his role as director of Alvin S. Glenn.
Recently, Kitchen’s name has been in the news because of a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of inmate Alex Murdaugh in an effort to stop Richland County from releasing more of Murdaugh’s jailhouse phone calls to the public.
Sources say Kitchen’s departure is unrelated to this lawsuit.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
(Via: Provided)
Liz Farrell is the new executive editor at FITSNews. She was named 2018’s top columnist in the state by South Carolina Press Association and is back after taking a nearly two-year break from corporate journalism to reclaim her soul. Email her at liz@fitsnews.com or tweet her @ElizFarrell.
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