Arrestee got his 1 call, 68 more
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Pope County jail inmate Michael Allen Stringer got to make more than the one call every American expects to dial if he’s arrested.
The Russellville man called his estranged wife, Lauren Stringer, 69 times in just under 26 hours, starting the morning after police arrested him after a domestic-disturbance report.
“He was... threatening her, threatening to kill her” on the recorded phone calls, officer Stephen Pack of the county sheriff ’s office in Russellville said Monday.
Now, Michael Stringer, who also has gone by the name Michael Whitlow, is back in jail on a charge of making terroristic threats on some of the calls. Stringer, who had bonded out just after making the calls, was arrested again Thursday and was being held Monday on $ 20, 000 bail.
He is scheduled to appear in Pope County Circuit Court on Dec. 1.
Stringer, 25, also has been ordered not to contact his estranged wife, who has had divorce papers and an order of protection served on him, Pack said.
Lauren Stringer, also 25, accepted just three of the collect calls from her husband, all made from the jail’s inmate phone system, and indicated she did so then in hopes of getting him to stop calling her, Pack said.
The calls started at 10: 22 a. m. on Oct. 25 and ended at 12: 11 p. m. Oct. 26, Pack said.
According to Pack and an incident report, at about 12: 50 p. m. on Oct. 25, Lauren Stringer reported that her husband was calling and threatening to kill her.
“She advised that she is very afraid of the suspect and that she has made several reports over the past couple of years against the suspect,” the report says. But the calls persisted even after she contacted the jail.
“They asked him to quit calling,” Pack said. “I guess he didn’t quit calling.”
When the domestic disturbance was reported, Pack said, officers took Michael Stringer into custody on contempt of court.
“He owed some fines he hadn’t been paying on,” Pack said.
The officer had no other details on that case.
To his knowledge, Pack said, Lauren Stringer was not hurt.
Lauren Stringer did not answer phone calls from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Monday.
Michael Stringer still can make phone calls from the jail, but officials now have blocked his wife’s number from the phone system.
Every housing unit within the jail has phones for inmates, said Sgt. Scott Dixon, a jailer. Inmates are allowed to make collect calls “anytime they’re up from like 6 o’clock in the morning until about 10: 30 [p. m. ] when we lock down.”
All calls are recorded.
“When we’re notified that they’ve abused things... then we can block the number that they are calling,” Dixon said.
He didn’t know why it took so long to block the calls in this case, he said.
The calls happened on a weekend, possibly making it more difficult to stop them quickly, he said.
Sheriff Jay Winters did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Randy Rankin, coordinator of the Arkansas Criminal Detention Facilities Review Committees, said on Monday that such inmate phone systems are fairly common around the state and the country.
Individual jails have their own policies regulating them, he said.
In Pulaski County, sheriff’s spokesman John Rehrauer said inmates are allowed to make collect calls whenever they are out of their cells — which, in the jail’s general population, amounts to “quite a few hours of the day.”
Such calls are recorded, and the inmate must call collect or charge the call to a calling card.
Inmates in the jail’s highsecurity units are “much more limited,” Rehrauer said. “We have had situations where people have had harassing phone calls from people in jail,” he said. “We block them when we find out about it.” In Washington County, jail administrator Randall Denzer said inmates may use the phone system to make collect calls all day until bedtime. When they call someone, he said, the phone service tells the recipient that the call is from the detention center and that person may refuse it. The system, which Denzer said works well, allows authorities to block calls. The Craighead County jail also has such a phone system, which generally works well, said Chief Deputy Rick Thomas.
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