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At Nation’s Largest Jail System, New Indictments Add To Evidence Of Corruption And Brutal Beatings
At Nation’s Largest Jail System, New Indictments Add To Evidence Of Corruption And Brutal Beatings
By Nicole Flatow
Federal officials have filed criminal charges against two deputy sheriffs in the nation’s largest sheriff’s department who allegedly issued brutal beatings to an inmate and then lied about it.
The deputies at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department allegedly kicked, pepper-sprayed, and beat an inmate with flashlights while he was “waist-chained,” and then later filed false reports accusing the inmate of having attacked them that led to pursuit of criminal charges against the inmate, according to the indictment.
The latest filing comes two months after 18 other officers in the department were indicted for similar allegations of brutality and corruption, in a county that has seen a spate of allegations of violence and misconduct, leading to extensive probes by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other entities. Among the allegations was that officers assaulted visitors to the jail, including the Austrian consul general. During testimony before a county commission created to address the violence, a department captain described a mantra among officers of striking inmates anywhere but “in the face,” so as not to leave evidence of the beatings. In a concurrent civil trial, video showed “deputies firing concussion grenades and pulling bloodied and limp inmates out of their cells” as inmates scream in pain.
Jails, unlike prisons, typically hold inmates who are either locked up pending their trial, or were convicted of lower-level offenses mandating short sentences (typically less than a year). But because the state of California has been plagued with its own allegations of unconstitutional overcrowding in its prisons, a system of “realignment” has moved state prison inmates into the jail system, making what is already the country’s largest jail system even larger and more overcrowded. Reformers have had some success in moves to get low-level offenders out of the jail system and into programs like a county fire suppression camp that both train the offenders and provide a public services.
- more -
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/02/10/3272051/nations-largest-jail-indictments-add-evidence-corruption-brutal-beatings/
By Nicole Flatow
Federal officials have filed criminal charges against two deputy sheriffs in the nation’s largest sheriff’s department who allegedly issued brutal beatings to an inmate and then lied about it.
The deputies at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department allegedly kicked, pepper-sprayed, and beat an inmate with flashlights while he was “waist-chained,” and then later filed false reports accusing the inmate of having attacked them that led to pursuit of criminal charges against the inmate, according to the indictment.
The latest filing comes two months after 18 other officers in the department were indicted for similar allegations of brutality and corruption, in a county that has seen a spate of allegations of violence and misconduct, leading to extensive probes by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other entities. Among the allegations was that officers assaulted visitors to the jail, including the Austrian consul general. During testimony before a county commission created to address the violence, a department captain described a mantra among officers of striking inmates anywhere but “in the face,” so as not to leave evidence of the beatings. In a concurrent civil trial, video showed “deputies firing concussion grenades and pulling bloodied and limp inmates out of their cells” as inmates scream in pain.
Jails, unlike prisons, typically hold inmates who are either locked up pending their trial, or were convicted of lower-level offenses mandating short sentences (typically less than a year). But because the state of California has been plagued with its own allegations of unconstitutional overcrowding in its prisons, a system of “realignment” has moved state prison inmates into the jail system, making what is already the country’s largest jail system even larger and more overcrowded. Reformers have had some success in moves to get low-level offenders out of the jail system and into programs like a county fire suppression camp that both train the offenders and provide a public services.
- more -
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/02/10/3272051/nations-largest-jail-indictments-add-evidence-corruption-brutal-beatings/
4 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
A guy is waist chained and you do all of this bullshit?
How about just shove him into a cell and walk away?
If he's biting, spitting or kicking they could have pushed him from behind a shield.
Heads should roll for this.
And where the hell is the ACLU?
How about just shove him into a cell and walk away?
If he's biting, spitting or kicking they could have pushed him from behind a shield.
Heads should roll for this.
And where the hell is the ACLU?