York County Sheriff Tony Breeden fired a detention officer on Sunday, Oct. 25, after state police arrested the man on six child neglect charges the day before.
Joel Snipes, a detention officer at the York County Detention Center, was arrested Saturday, Oct. 24, by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), according to a York County Sheriff's Office statement reported by the Fort Mill Sun. SLED charged Snipes with six counts of unlawfully placing a child at risk of or causing harm, or willfully abandoning a child.
Breeden terminated Snipes one day after the arrest.
The chain of events began Friday, Oct. 23, when the sheriff's office received an anonymous tip about the alleged neglect of several children, according to the statement. Deputies went to the location named in the tip to investigate.
During that preliminary investigation, deputies discovered that one of the suspects was Snipes, who worked at the county jail. Because detention officers work for the sheriff, Breeden asked SLED to take over the case to avoid a conflict of interest, the Herald reported.
The sheriff's office operates the 585-bed jail at the Moss Justice Center in York.
Snipes was booked into the York County Detention Center on Oct. 24 and released on a $12,000 surety bond the same day, according to the sheriff's office.
No additional details about the circumstances of the alleged neglect, the number of children involved, or Snipes' relationship to the children have been released. The sheriff's office said all further information about the investigation will come from SLED.
The Herald reported it had reached out to SLED for more information about the investigation and charges. No response from Snipes appears in public reporting as of publication.
SLED is handling the ongoing investigation.
