Two years after a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy was seen on digital camera showing to bash a handcuffed inmate’s head right into a concrete wall, prosecutors have determined to not cost both of the jailers concerned.
The district legal professional’s workplace defined the transfer in a memo final month, saying prosecutors couldn’t inform whether or not the violence was intentional since one of many deputies alleged it was the inmate’s “own momentum” that “caused his head to make contact with the wall.”
The choice comes one yr after video of the incident at Males’s Central Jail was made public by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which posted a 15-second clip of it on-line. The graphic surveillance video confirmed two deputies chatting as an inmate emerged from his cell along with his palms cuffed behind him.
One deputy appeared to seize the inmate from behind and slam him into the wall, seemingly with out provocation. Pictures of his accidents present the person sustained a deep 3-inch head wound.
This week, Peter Eliasberg, the ACLU chief counsel concerned in two long-standing class-action lawsuits in opposition to the jails, denounced the district legal professional’s determination to not prosecute the deputies.
“Standing alone, it is nothing short of pathetic,” he informed The Occasions. “But it’s outrageous when you tie it back to the history of the D.A.’s office coddling criminal behavior by the Sheriff’s Department.”
He mentioned the ACLU plans to ask the U.S. Division of Justice to take up the case, noting that federal prosecutors have beforehand obtained convictions in opposition to different jail deputies prior district attorneys declined to prosecute.
The Los Angeles County district legal professional’s workplace informed The Occasions in an electronic mail that it “takes allegations of misconduct by jail deputies extremely seriously” and critiques every case based mostly on the proof.
“This office thoroughly reviewed the allegations in this case,” the e-mail mentioned, including that prosecutors “concluded that the allegations could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The Sheriff’s Division mentioned in a press release Friday that each deputies are nonetheless with the division. Now that the district legal professional’s workplace is finished with the case, sheriff’s officers will determine whether or not the deputies violated any insurance policies or procedures.
“The department expects that custody personnel will perform their responsibilities in a professional manner with integrity and compassion,” the assertion mentioned. “Any individuals who fail to uphold our standards of care and violate Department policy will be held accountable.”
The deputies didn’t reply to emailed requests for remark, and it was not instantly clear whether or not they had attorneys.
The 2022 incident passed off in a high-security unit at Males’s Central Jail, the place all prisoners are handcuffed via a door slot earlier than they’re allowed to go away their cells. At any time when they arrive out, insurance policies dictate that they be escorted by two deputies “who are required to maintain a firm grip on the inmate.”
It’s the identical unit, ACLU attorneys mentioned, that has since been the scene of different issues. On Wednesday, The Occasions reported that oversight inspectors caught eight deputies within the high-security unit watching a “sexually explicit video” as an alternative of tending to a suicidal inmate.
One inspector described the unit as “moldy” and humid and mentioned the boys dwelling there haven’t any books or pens.
“They have absolutely nothing, and it’s completely dark,” oversight commissioner Haley Broder mentioned in an interview. “Being down there for 30 minutes, I don’t know how anyone could survive this.”
In keeping with the D.A.’s memo, the inmate within the surveillance video — whose identify was redacted — had been housed in that high-security unit as a result of he’d beforehand threatened to stab deputies and had an “extensive history” of assaulting folks.
On July 4, 2022, the memo mentioned, Deputies Jose Peralta and Johnathan Gutierrez walked as much as the inmate’s cell to escort him to the bathe. After they cuffed him and he exited the cell, the deputies mentioned he informed them: “Don’t touch me.”
As a result of the surveillance video doesn’t have sound, it’s not attainable to inform what — if something — the three males mentioned. However in line with the D.A.’s memo, Peralta claimed the inmate threatened to headbutt Gutierrez.
By Gutierrez’s account, as soon as the inmate exited his cell he shortly turned towards the bathe with a “sudden movement” that caught the deputy off guard, in line with the memo. Gutierrez reacted by grabbing the inmate’s forearm and reaching for his shoulder. Then, he alleges, the inmate “lunged his upper body forward.”
All of it occurred so quick, Gutierrez mentioned, that he was targeted solely on controlling the inmate. In keeping with the memo, the deputy mentioned his proper hand “ended up behind” the inmate’s head as the person was shifting ahead.
“It was his own momentum that caused his head to make contact with the wall,” Gutierrez wrote in a use-of-force report that prosecutors quoted of their memo.
Eliasberg characterised that description as “patently false.”
When investigators interviewed the inmate a number of hours after the incident, he appeared to dispute the deputies’ description, too, and mentioned nothing about threatening to headbutt them — however mentioned they’d beforehand threatened him.
“I’m walking out, the cops pulled me out, and I went forward, and he hit me right in the forehead,” he informed them, in line with the memo. “That’s all I remember. Because the cop told me yesterday that once they get me out of the cell, they were going to get me.”
The memo mentioned he went on to inform investigators that he’s on psychiatric remedy and believes he has telepathy. When he couldn’t keep on matter, investigators minimize the interview brief.
The deputies didn’t present voluntary statements to investigators, the memo mentioned, although each males wrote use-of-force reviews that prosecutors analyzed when evaluating the case.
To show the deputies dedicated a criminal offense, prosecutors wrote, they’d have to point out that the power was willful, illegal and “not in self-defense.”
However they mentioned the video seems to substantiate the inmate made some “sudden movements” and “began moving his body in the direction of the wall before Gutierrez grabbed” him by the again of the neck.
“It cannot be determined from the video footage whether Gutierrez deliberately slammed” the inmate into the wall or whether or not it “was accidental,” prosecutors continued, concluding they didn’t have sufficient proof to maneuver ahead with a case.
Corene Kendrick, one other ACLU legal professional concerned within the jail lawsuits, referred to as that reasoning “mind-boggling,” saying that whether or not the slam was intentional needs to be left as much as a jury.
“Whether or not the officers willfully smashed the man’s head into the wall or whether his head somehow just hit the wall like they contend, that is something a jury should determine,” she mentioned. “It’s really stunning they would think there was no crime committed here. If an incarcerated person had smashed an officer’s head into the wall and caused those injuries, somehow I don’t think that the district attorney’s office would refuse to prosecute.”
Almost a decade in the past, the ACLU raised related allegations in a scathing July 2015 letter to then-D.A. Jackie Lacey. The letter targeted on native prosecutors’ failure to cost a bunch of deputies who beat and pepper-sprayed a customer they claimed attacked them in 2011.
Initially county prosecutors charged the customer — Gabriel Carrillo — with battery on a peace officer and different crimes however mentioned there was “no evidence to suggest that the deputies acted inappropriately.”
After the U.S. legal professional’s workplace took over the case, federal prosecutors secured prison convictions in opposition to 5 deputies, together with two who admitted in courtroom that Carrillo had been handcuffed throughout the assault. Carrillo sued, and the case settled for $1.2 million.
In keeping with the ACLU’s letter, the Carrillo case was half of a bigger sample. The district legal professional’s workplace was fast to file prices in opposition to inmates — usually with out reviewing video proof — however “almost never” filed prices in opposition to deputies, the civil rights group mentioned.
Eliasberg mentioned this week that little has modified.
“This is just more evidence of the D.A.’s unwillingness to provide accountability for criminal behavior by law enforcement,” he mentioned. “The ACLU will be expeditiously asking the U.S. DOJ to investigate this incident and prosecute as it did in 2011 and 2012.”
Presently, the Sheriff’s Division is topic to a number of consent decrees stemming from federal lawsuits. One, a case referred to as Rosas vs. Luna, started in 2012 when inmates alleged “degrading, cruel and sadistic deputy attacks on inmates” had turn out to be a standard prevalence. Most of the beatings meted out by deputies, the swimsuit alleged, had been “far more severe than the infamous 1991 beating of Rodney King.”
After three years of authorized wrangling, in 2015 the inmates — represented by the ACLU — and the county got here to an settlement about particular modifications the Sheriff’s Division would make to cut back the variety of beatings behind bars.
Almost a decade later, there have been some indicators of enchancment, as county knowledge present that jailers punch inmates within the face far much less continuously than they used to. However the division has but to adjust to the entire phrases of the settlement. The case continues.
