The investigation of Sunday's White County homicide has placed one person is in custody awaiting charges.
Sheriff Brooks told News 18 the current jail cannot accommodate space for mental health or substance abuse counseling.
WHITE COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI) — The investigation of Sunday's White County homicide has placed one person is in custody awaiting charges.
White County Sheriff Bill Brooks says of the last six homicide suspects in White County, drug use was a factor in three cases. Two have had mental health play a part.
Whether these were factors in the shooting that resulted from an argument on Sunday remains under investigation.
Those six killings have all taken place in the four years since Sheriff Bill Brooks took office in 2019.
Brooks told News 18 the current jail cannot accommodate space for mental health or substance abuse counseling. He says he is frustrated that attempts to purchase or renovate a community corrections building with the County Commissioners have not made progress.
"Government moves slow, but the public doesn't, and the system is ramping up faster than the public can keep up," Brooks said. "We're not ever going to be able to afford a mental facility, we're not big enough for that. And that's sad."
Brooks said he has seen multiple buildings and cost plans have been presented ranging from the hundreds of thousands to the millions of dollars. But, none have made headway.
"There is zero transparency. Zero," he said. "Right now we have a building with no counseling, never designed for it. We have a building [without] mental health [treatment]. We don't have it. It isn't here. That's frustrating. Three and a half years I've been arguing this, and this jail, now, there's nothing."
He said the jail is currently using closets as makeshift rooms for virtual counseling sessions.
The White County Commissioners have not responded to News 18's request for comment as of the publication of this story.
