ODESSA -- An Odessa woman is out of a job thanks to a couple of selfies she took with a group of inmates.
"People do stupid things, and she did one, and it cost her her job," said Sgt. Gary Duesler with the Ector County Sheriff’s Office.
On Wednesday, a contract employee with the Ector County Sheriff's Office was fired after pictures of her posing with a group of inmates surfaced.
But as CBS 7 News learned, it's only the beginning of the investigation.
After 30 years on the job, Sgt. Duesler thought he had seen it all.
"The fact that he’s got no shirt on, it's ridiculous, totally ridiculous," Sgt. Duesler said as he stared at one of the photos that were taken.
Sgt. Duesler couldn't believe his eyes when three photos of a contracted kitchen employee posing with a group of inmates came across his desk.
“There's just nothing good to come out of this whatsoever, other than somebody hopefully learned a lesson," Sgt. Duesler said.
A quick investigation determined that the photos were taken inside the sheriff's office’s food storage, but what's not clear is if any other employees were present.
"The employees are told, when I say employees, contract employees, or anybody that works at the detention center, are told we don’t fraternize with inmates,” Sgt. Duesler explained. “We’re not their friends, were not their buddies, it’s a relationship working only and she violated that."
Now investigators are busy pulling surveillance tapes to see if anything else may have transpired, perhaps something that these photos didn't capture.
As for the inmates in the photos, Sgt. Duesler says they too may face some sort of discipline.
Based on the color of their jumpsuits, the inmates are lower level offenders who earned the department's trust to be on a special work force, which explains why they were in the area in the first place.
"Both of them obviously were cleared for that area, but they may have different job assignments, but bottom line is they are not cleared to be taking pictures with an employee," Duesler said.
We’ve reached out to the now former contracted employee for comment, but have yet to hear from her.
However, she did share a post on her Facebook page saying that she realizes she messed up and has learned from her mistakes.
