The union representing employees at the Allegheny County Jail claims there’s an ongoing staffing shortage. Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 spoke with Brian Englert. He’s the president of the Allegheny County Prison Employees Independent Union which he says has 376 members.Englert claims there has been a staffing shortage for the third week in a row at the jail.“If we have an inmate assault or a stabbing like we had last week, we want as many officers as possible to respond. Last week when we had an issue, we had 30 officers respond. Yesterday, we had eight, so that’s a big number,” Englert said.Englert says this weekend he requested the jail be locked down because of an understaffed shift, but according to him, he was denied. Englert said the second shift was short of seven hallway escorts and an intake officer, calling it a dangerous situation.“If an issue does happen, we don’t have the bodies to respond in a timely manner. Our job is care, custody and control. We don’t want to see inmates fight each other and hurt each other, and we definitely don’t want to see an officer or nurse get assaulted. We want to have as many people possible to respond,” Englert said.But officials with the county said there are enough workers. Jesse Geleynse, a spokesperson for the Allegheny County Jail, issued a statement:"Mr. Englert is a CO and doesn’t make decisions on staffing. We have appropriate staffing in place and would not put anyone’s safety in jeopardy. His claims to the contrary, however, do exactly that."We continue to recruit and seek individuals who are interested in serving as corrections officers to increase the complement of staff and welcome anyone interested to visit the county website or to register for the upcoming virtual job fair."