Deaths and Injuries in Police Custody

[Andrea]

Shocking viral video appears to show deputy slamming teen's head into the ground

https://www.kcra.com/article/shocking-viral-video-appears-to-show-deputy-slamming-teen-s-head-into-the-ground/27222755?fbclid=IwAR227ZE3XA7oy_1Qg9YzrWNvQ4BrQq00 R2K18a_1WDcSAdL690S7xUjbb2o

BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. (video from WPLG) —
A Broward County sheriff's deputy is on "restricted administrative assignment" after a video surfaced that appears to show him slamming a teenage boy's head into the ground and then punching the teen in the head.

The video of the Thursday incident appears to show one Florida deputy spraying pepper spray in the face of a teen boy. As the teen appears to walk away with his hands on his face, the deputy follows him, grabs him and slams him to the ground.

Another deputy then jumps onto the boy's back, slams his face into the pavement more than once and punches the teen in the head.

In the background, bystanders can be heard yelling "What are you doing?" and "He's bleeding."

The video, which has since gone viral on social media, has sparked outrage over the deputy's conduct.

Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony released a video statement Friday saying there would be a "thorough investigation" into the incident.

"We will look at this as a fact-finding measure to ensure that we hold folks accountable," said Tony, who was appointed to his position about three months ago. "I was appointed to this position exclusively about accountability and that accountability will be held not just for sake of when we are right, but in the cases where we may be wrong."

The Broward County Sheriff's office said on its website that the Division of Internal Affairs is investigating the incident.

Deputy says he 'had to act quickly'

An arrest report from the sheriff'spffice says detectives with the Tamarac Crime Suppression Team were on "proactive patrol" at the Tamarac Town Square Plaza because of recent student fights at the strip mall. The day before the deputies' encounter, the report says, there had been a large fight that resulted in damage to property and a bystander's vehicle.

The officer writing the report, Christopher Krickovich, said a fight Thursday stopped before he and other deputies walked up. As the crowd dispersed, the deputies saw a teen who had been involved in Wednesday's fight. Krickovich wrote he and another deputy -- identified as Sgt. LaCerra -- approached the teen and put him into custody because he was trespassing.

Krickovich said as he was detaining the teen, he noticed another boy wearing a "red tank top" reach down and try to grab the phone of the teen being detained, the report says. LaCerra told the boy to stay back because Krickovich was on the ground with his back turned, Krickovich wrote in the report.

"At this point, the male with the red tank top, took an aggressive stance towards Sgt. LaCerra," Krickovich wrote. "The male with the red tank top bladed his body and began clenching his fist."

That's when LaCerra sprayed the boy with pepper spray, the report says.

Krickovich wrote in the report that he saw the big crowd of 200-plus students "converging on the two of us," so he jumped on the boy with the red tank top.

"With the crowd closing in and the loud yelling and threats towards us, I pushed down the male to ensure my weight was full on his person so he could not attempt to take flight or fight against us," Krickovich wrote, adding that it felt as though the boy in the red tank was trying to push up while he was pushing down.

"I had to act quickly, fearing I would get struck or having a student potentially grab weapons off my belt or vest," Krickovich wrote.

Krickovich said he punched the boy in the head "as a distractionary technique to free his right hand" from under his face.

The 15-year-old boy, who has not been identified, was taken to Coral Springs Medical Center, cleared and then taken to Juvenile Assessment Center. He was charged with assault, resisting arrest and trespassing, according to CNN affiliate WFOR-TV. He appeared in court Friday morning and was released to his parents.

Mayor says deputy should be fired

Broward Mayor Mark Bogen released a statement Friday condemning the actions seen in the video.

"The behavior of these Broward Sheriff's Office deputies was outrageous and unacceptable," Bogen said. "The officer who jumped on the student, punched the student and banged his head to the ground should be fired immediately. There is no excuse for a law enforcement officer to harm a teenager who was on the ground and who gave no resistance."

Bogen said he also had a problem with the deputy who threw the boy on the ground after pepper spraying him.

"After being sprayed, the teen held his face and walked away," Bogen said. "If the deputy wanted to arrest the student, he could have easily done so without throwing him to the ground. I hope the appropriate authorities investigate this conduct and take the appropriate action."

Celebrities also reacted to the video on social media Saturday.

LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers wrote on Twitter: "So wrong!! Hurts me to my soul!! To think that could be my sons. Scary times man."

Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr wondered on Twitter "What the hell is wrong with our country? This is insane yet routine. So demoralizing."

[Andrea]

Moment cops open fire on unarmed black couple near Yale campus as they sat in car singing along to R&B singer Avant because police wrongly believed their vehicle had been involved in a robbery

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6946347/Police-officers-open-fire-unarmed-African-American-couple-Connecticut.html

Protest erupted along the streets of Connecticut after video surfaced of a police officer opening fire on a vehicle being driven by an unarmed black couple last Tuesday

Stephanie Washington, 22, and her boyfriend Paul Witherspoon III, 21, were shot at by Hamden police officer Devin Eaton and Yale police officer Terrance Pollack as they sat unarmed in their car near Yale university's campus in New Haven.

Authorities believed that the vehicle that the couple was driving had been involved in an armed robbery of a newspaper delivery person at a local Hamden gas station around 4am, CBS News reports.

The two departments then caught up with the vehicle - which was being driven by Witherspoon.

Surveillance footage shows the moment the responding officers jumped our of their SUV and fired multiple rounds at the couple last Tuesday.

During the shooting, Washington was shot in the face and has since been hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, according to university officials.

Witherspoon was left unharmed.

During the CCTV video, police officer Devin Eaton is seen leaping out of the police car and raising his gun towards the vehicle.

He then begins to fire multiple shots at the unarmed couple after Witherspoon abruptly gets out of the vehicle before running away from the car towards the end of the street.

Video from inside the couple's vehicle shows that prior to the shooting, they had been enjoying each other's company and were singing songs to each other.

Officer Eaton has been placed on administrative leave while an investigation into the shooting is ongoing. Pollock was also placed on leave, as standard protocol for any instance when a Yale officer discharges their weapon.

The shooting has led to an outpouring of peaceful demonstrations along the streets from groups such as the Black Lives Matter movement and Yale University students, with protesters claiming the black couple were unfairly targeted.

On Thursday, hundreds of protesters took the streets and blocked traffic near the university as community organizer Kerry Ellington addressed more than 200 students outside Yale University's Woodbridge Hall.

Witherspoon's uncle, Rodney Williams, told CBS News that the incident also sheds light on how police in the country are trained.

He said: 'You need to look at what's really going on with the police ... really look at how the police look at residents period.

'The police could be black, white, Puerto Rican ... it's just a police issue ... I think we need to be respected as human beings and I feel like they really don't.'

The two police officers have now been placed under administrative leave.

Connecticut State Police have said they will release further information on their investigations later this week.

The Mayors of Hamden and New Haven have teemed up with the various police department for a joint Wednesday conference where they worked on curbing such incidents from taking place again.

[Andrea]

'Sir, please': Police chief says he's disgusted by video of woman's rough arrest

https://www.kcra.com/article/sir-please-police-chief-says-he-s-disgusted-by-video-of-woman-s-rough-arrest/27266068?fbclid=IwAR2GOEFhPUvDZqAP5H9gTfjgH5ykmKJo DjMsItdIzcrhaIDWATi_QukeplY

Tuscaloosa police have released the bodycam footage of a woman's arrest that ended with her bleeding from her head and two officers on desk duty while they await disciplinary proceedings.

"He made me feel like I wasn't even human. Like I was a piece of garbage. Like I was an animal," said the woman, 22-year-old Jhasmynn Sheppard.

Sheppard was stopped by Tuscaloosa Police on Friday for leaving the scene of an accident, police said. She told CNN that while she was in a small accident, she and the other driver had ironed it out.

She was pulled over as she drove home. As Sheppard looked for her license and registration, the officer asked her to step out of the vehicle and began to handcuff her, according to the video.

At one point, Sheppard said, "Sir, please don't do me like this," and then turns toward the officer and attempts to pull her arm away as he is trying to handcuff her hands behind her back.

An altercation breaks out and another officer becomes involved. Video shows the woman on the ground with the officers on top of her and they can be heard cursing her, calling her "stupid" and threatening to kick her teeth in. One of the officers also appears to hit her with his baton.

"I was thinking this isn't right. This isn't right. All I know I was on the ground. When I looked up he was on the ground too. Next thing I know he tackled me," Sheppard said.

Sheppard said she was arrested for unarming a police officer, resisting arrest and assault. She spent two days in jail and was never given medical attention, though she was bleeding from her head.

Sheppard said no one with the police or the city have contacted her since the arrest, but that she has heard through local media reports that the charges against her may be dropped.

Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steve Anderson said he was "disgusted" by the actions of the two officers.

The chief said the officers violated department training throughout the incident, and that both are now on desk duty during disciplinary procedures, according WVTM.

Sheppard saw the footage for the first time Wednesday.

"It kind of hurts my feelings every time I see it," she told CNN.

[Andrea]

We found 85,000 cops who’ve been investigated for misconduct. Now you can read their records.

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2019/04/24/usa-today-revealing-misconduct-records-police-cops/3223984002/

At least 85,000 law enforcement officers across the USA have been investigated or disciplined for misconduct over the past decade, an investigation by USA TODAY Network found.

Officers have beaten members of the public, planted evidence and used their badges to harass women. They have lied, stolen, dealt drugs, driven drunk and abused their spouses.

Despite their role as public servants, the men and women who swear an oath to keep communities safe can generally avoid public scrutiny for their misdeeds.

The records of their misconduct are filed away, rarely seen by anyone outside their departments. Police unions and their political allies have worked to put special protections in place ensuring some records are shielded from public view, or even destroyed.

Reporters from USA TODAY, its 100-plus affiliated newsrooms and the nonprofit Invisible Institute in Chicago have spent more than a year creating the biggest collection of police misconduct records.

Obtained from thousands of state agencies, prosecutors, police departments and sheriffs, the records detail at least 200,000 incidents of alleged misconduct, much of it previously unreported. The records obtained include more than 110,000 internal affairs investigations by hundreds of individual departments and more than 30,000 officers who were decertified by 44 state oversight agencies.


Among the findings:

Most misconduct involves routine infractions, but the records reveal tens of thousands of cases of serious misconduct and abuse. They include 22,924 investigations of officers using excessive force, 3,145 allegations of rape, child molestation and other sexual misconduct and 2,307 cases of domestic violence by officers.

Dishonesty is a frequent problem. The records document at least 2,227 instances of perjury, tampering with evidence or witnesses or falsifying reports. There were 418 reports of officers obstructing investigations, most often when they or someone they knew were targets.

Less than 10% of officers in most police forces get investigated for misconduct. Yet some officers are consistently under investigation. Nearly 2,500 have been investigated on 10 or more charges. Twenty faced 100 or more allegations yet kept their badge for years.

The level of oversight varies widely from state to state. Georgia and Florida decertified thousands of police officers for everything from crimes to questions about their fitness to serve; other states banned almost none.

That includes Maryland, home to the Baltimore Police Department, which regularly has been in the news for criminal behavior by police. Over nearly a decade, Maryland revoked the certifications of just four officers.

We’re making those records public
The records USA TODAY and its partners gathered include tens of thousands of internal investigations, lawsuit settlements and secret separation deals.

They include names of at least 5,000 police officers whose credibility as witnesses has been called into question. These officers have been placed on Brady lists, created to track officers whose actions must be disclosed to defendants if their testimony is relied upon to prosecute someone.

USA TODAY plans to publish many of those records to give the public an opportunity to examine their police department and the broader issue of police misconduct, as well as to help identify decertified officers who continue to work in law enforcement.

Seth Stoughton, who worked as a police officer for 14 years and teaches law at the University of South Carolina, said expanding public access to those kinds of records is critical to keep good cops employed and bad cops unemployed.

“No one is in a position to assess whether an officer candidate can do the job well and the way that we expect the job to be done better than the officer’s former employer,” Stoughton said.

“Officers are public servants. They police in our name," he said. There is a "strong public interest in identifying how officers are using their public authority.”

Dan Hils, president of the Cincinnati Police Department’s branch of the Fraternal Order of Policemen union, said people should consider there are more than 750,000 law enforcement officers in the country when looking at individual misconduct data.

“The scrutiny is way tighter on police officers than most folks, and that’s why sometimes you see high numbers of misconduct cases,” Hils said. “But I believe that policemen tend to be more honest and more trustworthy than the average citizen.”

Hils said he has no issue with USA TODAY publishing public records of conduct, saying it is the news media’s “right and responsibility to investigate police and the authority of government. You’re supposed to be a watchdog.”

The first set of records USA TODAY is releasing is an exclusive nationwide database of about 30,000 people whom state governments banned from the profession by revoking their certification to be law enforcement officers.

For years, a private police organization has assembled such a list from more than 40 states and encourages police agencies to screen new hires. The list is kept secret from anyone outside law enforcement.

USA TODAY obtained the names of banned officers from 44 states by filing requests under state sunshine laws.

The information includes the officers’ names, the department they worked for when the state revoked their certification and – in most cases – the reasons why.

The list is incomplete because of the absence of records from states such as California, which has the largest number of law enforcement officers in the USA.

USA TODAY's collection of police misconduct records comes amid a nationwide debate over law enforcement tactics, including concern that some officers or agencies unfairly target minorities.

A series of killings of black people by police over the past five years in Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore, Chicago, Sacramento, California, and elsewhere have sparked unrest and a reckoning that put pressure on cities and mayors to crack down on misconduct and abuses.

The Trump administration has backed away from more than a decade of Justice Department investigations and court actions against police departments it determined were deeply biased or corrupt.

In 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Justice Department would leave policing the police to local authorities, saying federal investigations hurt crime fighting.

Laurie Robinson, co-chair of the 2014 White House Task Force on 21st Century Policing, said transparency about police conduct is critical to trust between police and residents.

“It’s about the people who you have hired to protect you,” she said. “Traditionally, we would say for sure that policing has not been a transparent entity in the U.S. Transparency is just a very key step along the way to repairing our relationships."

Help us investigate
The number of police agencies and officers in the USA is so large that the blind spots are vast. We need your help.

Though the records USA TODAY Network gathered are probably the most expansive ever collected, there is much more to be added. The collection includes several types of statewide data, but most misconduct is documented by individual departments.

Journalists obtained records from more than 700 law enforcement agencies, but the records are not complete for all of those agencies, and there are more than 18,000 police forces across the USA. The records requests were focused largely on the biggest 100 police agencies as well as clusters of smaller departments in surrounding areas, partly to examine movement of officers between departments in regions.

USA TODAY aims to identify other media organizations willing to partner in gathering new records and sharing documents they've already gathered. The Invisible Institute, a journalism nonprofit in Chicago focused on police accountability, has done so for more than a year and contributed records from dozens of police departments.

Reporters need help getting documents – and other kinds of tips – from the public, watchdog groups, researchers and even officers and prosecutors themselves.

If you have access to citizen complaints about police, internal affairs investigation records, secret settlement deals between agencies and departing officers or anything that sheds light on how agencies police their officers, we want to hear from you.

[Andrea]

Woman With Mental Illness Gave Birth Alone In Florida Jail Cell, Lawyers Say

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tammy-jackson-jailed-woman-gives-birth-cell_n_5cced440e4b04e275d4bb1fe?ncid=tweetlnkushpm g00000067

Behind bars and alone in a Florida jail cell, a pregnant, mentally ill woman complained late at night of contractions and beseeched the prison guards for help. But instead of transporting her to a hospital, the officers chose to phone an on-call doctor who turned out to be uncontactable for hours and ultimately didn’t show up in time to assist in the birth, the woman’s lawyers claim.

In the doctor’s absence, Tammy Jackson, 34, allegedly gave birth to her baby alone in her prison cell — without medical assistance of any kind.

In a scalding letter addressed to Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony, public defender Howard Finkelstein said officers at the special needs detention facility where Jackson was held were fully aware of her pregnancy and mental illness — and yet failed to “protect either Ms. Jackson or her child.”

“It is unconscionable that any woman, particularly a mentally ill woman, would be abandoned in her cell to deliver her own baby,” Finkelstein wrote in the Friday letter, which was first obtained and reported by The Miami Herald.

According to the attorney, Jackson, who was at full term, was being held in an “isolation cell” on April 10 when she alerted officers at around 3 a.m. that she was having contractions. The guards, Finkelstein said, attempted to contact an on-call doctor but weren’t able to reach him for almost four hours. In the interim, Jackson was allegedly left alone in her cell, without medication or assistance.

At around 7.20 a.m., prison staff finally made contact with the doctor who said “he would check on [Jackson] when he arrived at the jail,” Finkelstein’s letter said. Yet, an hour and 38 minutes later, Jackson reported that she was “bleeding but still … isolated in her cell.”

Finally, at around 10 a.m., a prison employee found Jackson with her newborn infant in her arms, the letter said, noting that six hours and 54 minutes had elapsed since the mother first asked for help.

″[In] her time of extreme need and vulnerability, [the Broward Sheriff’s Office] neglected to provide Ms. Jackson with the assistance and medical care all mothers need and deserve,” Finkelstein wrote.

The sheriff’s office told the Herald in a statement that a medical team, including a physician and two nurses, later attended to the mother and child.

“Child Protective Investigations Section was notified, and the baby was placed with an appropriate caregiver,” a spokeswoman said.

Citing court records, The Hill said Jackson was arrested earlier this year on cocaine possession charges and later released, but was arrested again after she failed to report for pretrial services.

Chief Assistant Public Defender Gordon Weekes described Jackson’s mental illness as “significant.”

Finkelstein, who demanded an “immediate review of the medical and isolation practices in place in all detention facilities” in his letter, said it remains to be seen how the gross negligence” Jackson endured will affect her “already fragile mental health.”

“Not only was Ms. Jackson’s health callously ignored, the life of her child was also put at grave risk,” he wrote.

[Andrea]

Community furious after Oklahoma officers shot three children in their head and face while firing at suspect in pizza shop robbery

https://meaww.com/oklahoma-police-officers-identified-shoot-three-children-apprehend-man-armed-pizza-shop-robbery

The names of two police officers who had been involved in the shooting of three children in Hugo, Oklahoma, have now been released more than a week after the tragedy occurred. Hugo Police Department detectives Billy Jenkins and Chad Allen were identified as the officers who opened fire on a vehicle that was being driven by 21-year-old William Devaughn Smith, who was under suspicion of robbing a pizza shop. Choctaw County Jail records indicate that Smith was being held on an aggravated robbery complaint. He had been in custody in Lamar County, Texas, after being released from a hospital there.

The officers' bullets ended up hitting three of the four children who were sitting in the back seat. Olivia Hill, the mother of the four children, told KFOR: "My 4-year-old daughter was shot in the head, and she has a bullet in her brain, and my 5-year-old has a skull fracture. My 1-year-old baby has gunshot wounds on her face. My 2-year-old wasn’t touched with any bullets."

A post on the Hugo, Oklahoma, police Facebook page said a man entered the back entrance of the restaurant, pressed an object to an employee's back and demanded money. Police said the worker handed over money and the robber left.

The police officers later intercepted the suspect and claim that they started shooting because Smith had been trying to run them over with his truck, but many are claiming that this is false. Witnesses say that the officers could have just moved out of the way instead of opening fire, especially considering there were children inside the vehicle.

It is also worth noting that the officers were in plain clothes on that day meaning Smith may not have known the two men approaching his vehicle with guns were police officers. According to TFTP, family attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons said: "If you don’t know if someone is law enforcement or not, it changes things. I don’t know what happened, but that’s concerning to me."

The three children who were shot in the incident have all reportedly been released from the hospital but will continue to deal with "a lot of physical and emotional pain," according to Simmons.

He said: "They are terrified to go anywhere or hear anything. The two-year-old keeps asking about 'Am I going to get shot again'. It’s a bad deal. The child who had a bullet in the brain, there’s some question now that she may have a permanent injury. She might be looking at a lifetime injury."

[Andrea]

Whistleblowers describe culture of racism, abuse and cover-ups at Florida prison

https://www.jacksonville.com/news/20190508/whistleblowers-describe-culture-of-racism-abuse-and-cover-ups-at-florida-prison

One former Panhandle prison employee said she filed a written complaint about a correctional officer’s racist behavior, then came into work several days later to another officer dangling a noose made of toilet paper in front of her.

Another former employee said she walked in on a handcuffed inmate being beaten in the medical unit, surrounded by a group of officers. She was suspended one day after filing an incident report about it, and fired within two weeks.

Though both of those employees are now gone, they aren’t alone.

In interviews with the Times-Union, a dozen former and current employees at Santa Rosa Correctional Institution described a culture of abuse, bullying, racism and administrative cover-ups in the mental health dorms. Officers selected inmates they had problems with for unsanctioned forms of punishment: to include physical violence or withholding their food to the point where prisoners lost considerable weight, employees said.

“It frustrates us and makes us angry every time this happens and we report it and these officers are still there working,” said Betty Young, a former activities technician. “They won’t fire them because they’re so short on staff, and they keep them.”

Several employees complained all the way to the top — Warden Walker Clemmons.

There were multiple meetings about the work environment in the mental health dorms between concerned employees and their supervisors, including two with Clemmons in attendance, one as recently as mid-April, according to employees with direct knowledge of the meetings and records obtained by the Times-Union.

The Times-Union isn’t identifying any current employees, who expressed fears of retaliation. It is naming two former employees and used records to corroborate many of the claims.

In interviews with the Times-Union, employees at Santa Rosa also raised concerns about the July 2018 death of Michael Cuebas, which has been ruled a suicide by the Florida Department of Corrections. Specifically, they questioned why Cuebas was allowed to have a sheet in a shower cell, which is against department policy.

Cuebas, who was being housed in the mental health dorm, said he had attempted to hang himself in prison once before in letters to his mother. But he also expressed fear that correctional officers were going to put a hit on him and stage it to look like a suicide.

An inspector with the Florida Department of Corrections Office of Inspector General noted that Cuebas possessed a sheet in the shower cell but did not flag it as improper in a summary report of his investigation.

The Santa Rosa Correctional Institution is a crucial backstop in the Florida prison system. Deep in the Panhandle, the facility is known as the “end of the line,” but not because of its geographic location. Santa Rosa manages several wings of “close custody” inmates — those between maximum and medium security — as well as two mental health dorms.

That means the prison is responsible for some of the state’s most challenging inmates, but also some of its most vulnerable. Employees interviewed by the Times-Union stressed that the facility had seasoned officers who acted professionally as well, but that there was an unwillingness by the administration to hold other officers accountable.

The facility has a capacity of some 2,600 inmates but housed more than 3,300 prisoners from across the state as of the last audit in February 2015. It’s unclear how many of those are from Northeast Florida.

The Department of Corrections said the agency and leadership at Santa Rosa “have zero tolerance for staff who act inappropriately and in contrary to our core values.”

“We do not condone a culture of racism, abuse or coverup,” the agency said in a statement.

Michelle Glady, spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, said the agency couldn’t comment on Young’s firing because she was a Centurion employee and it was not involved in the decision. Centurion is the private medical contractor at Florida prisons.

The Office of Inspector General is reviewing and investigating the allegations, the department added. Glady said the institution had a “track record of ensuring that any individuals involved in misconduct are held fully accountable.”

‘YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS’

Ronald Thornton was one week away from his release date, serving a four-year sentence for cocaine possession, when correctional officers called him out from his cell.

Thornton, a black man, had been fighting with several correctional officers who he said used racist language toward him. He had already been badly beaten once before, to the point where his eyes were swollen shut, according to multiple sources at the prison.

But Thornton wasn’t staying quiet. He continued to call out officers for racist behavior.

On April 9, one month ago, a couple of officers told Thornton they had a going-away present for him, he said — then they told him he had to take a tuberculosis test.

The men led Thornton to the medical unit in handcuffs. It’s one of the few areas in the facility that has no cameras, according to several employees.

“They closed the door and put their gloves on and said, ‘You know what time it is,’” Thornton told the Times-Union. “Then they started hitting me.”

Thornton identified Sgt. Lee Peacock Jr. as one officer who beat him, but could not name others. He said violence against inmates was rampant in the prison. The Department of Corrections would not say whether Peacock was under investigation but confirmed that he is still an active employee there. The Times-Union attempted to reach him directly and through the agency but was unsuccessful.

Young, the former activities therapist at the prison, heard what she described as grunting in the midst of Thornton’s beating, and forced her way into the medical office. One officer whistled out a warning, she said, and when she arrived she saw several officers and some nurses were trying to shield Thornton from her view. Young said Thornton leaned away from an officer and looked to her, and she was able to see evidence of physical injury to his face.

Young, who said she had knowledge of Thornton being beaten up once before, said she called out in surprise at the officers that they were beating Thornton again. The officers simply stared at her and said nothing in response, Young said. She went directly to her supervisor to report the incident, she added.

That same day, Young wrote a report about the beating. She identified Peacock and other officers as being in the medical unit surrounding Thornton when she entered.

The incident report would be her last. Young was suspended the day after she filed it, then terminated a week and a half later, she said.

After Young shared her story with the Times-Union, the newspaper interviewed Thornton, whose recollection of the beating included many of the same details shared by Young, details outlined in records later obtained by the Times-Union. Thornton was released from prison on April 16.

‘GHOST TRAYS’

Officers regularly coerced inmates in the mental health unit by withholding or ruining their food, according to a dozen former and current employees.

Because inmates at the mental health unit are kept in one-man cells, officers deliver trays directly to them.

But sometimes, the officers served “air trays” or “ghost trays,” the employees said. The trays have a lid on top, so they appear to be full on video, but contain no food, they said, adding that officers will also position cups of juice to spill into the tray and soak the meal.

Employees said officers used the trays for coercion or retaliation. For instance, Thornton said that after his beating, an officer came up to the back of his cell, off camera, and told him to file an incident report saying he fell. The officers threatened him with ghost trays, he added.

Several current employees and former employees said officers commonly withheld food to get inmates to change their stories for investigations into abuse or to concoct fictional narratives that would cover up the wrongdoing of an officer.

Another form of retaliation is known as “bucking,” according to employees and former prisoners. To attend state-mandated programs such as group therapy, correctional officers must sign an inmate out of their cell after a contraband search, employees said.

Employees added that certain inmates were consistently being blocked from programs if they fell out of favor with the officers for any reason. When the employees asked officers why the inmate didn’t show up, they were told they refused to be searched, claims that employees would later find out to be false, they said.

Not attending the state-mandated programs can result in the loss of privileges for inmates such as time spent in the day room or the ability to possess radios.

Glady, the department spokeswoman, said that under policy, inmates who do not participate in scheduled activities are interviewed by counselors “to encourage him to participate at the time of the refusal.”

She added that the department’s Central Office “recently” assigned an ombudsman to the facility who is monitoring conditions in the mental health dorms.

‘FALL IN LINE’

Lauren Gaylord, a former activities specialist at the facility, said white officers frequently racially harassed her and other black employees there.

Gaylord did what she thought she was supposed to do in the face of harassment, she said, and reported the officers. But that only led to more problems, according to Gaylord.

During a mental health group meeting she was leading, Gaylord said, a correctional officer appeared outside the window holding a noose constructed out of toilet paper.

The noose appeared again, Gaylord said, several days later, when she was walking into work.

“They made sure when I walked in the quad that they had it dangling for me off of a roll of toilet paper that they had just taken out of a different inmates’ cell,” Gaylord said. “They had it hanging for me when I walked in. I knew it was for me because as soon as I saw it, they pulled it up, they all laughed together and then they balled it up and put it in their pockets.”

Gaylord identified Officer Kyle Hollis and Officer Travis Boswell, who she said dangled the noose in front of her that time. She said Officer Hollis then walked past her “and gave me kind of a, ’You fall in line” kind of smirk and said, ‘Did you see that, Gaylord?’”

Both incidents with nooses occurred last year, Gaylord said, but she could not identify specific dates. Gaylord said she reported the incidents, and the Times-Union has requested copies of those reports.

The Department of Corrections confirmed that Officer Hollis is still employed at Santa Rosa.

Unsettled after hearing about the noose incidents, several employees at the facility — many of them African American — complained about what they described as an environment of racial harassment by correctional officers, according to employees and records obtained by the Times-Union.

The newspaper first heard about the noose incidents from current employees. Gaylord then independently shared many of the same details when contacted by the Times-Union. The Times-Union attempted to reach the officers directly and through the agency but was unsuccessful.

‘ZERO TOLERANCE’

Late last year, employees at Santa Rosa voiced concerns in a meeting with Warden Walker Clemmons, Assistant Warden Michael Pabis and other high-ranking supervisors, according to employees with direct knowledge of the meeting.

The employees wanted to know why Officer Hollis was still working there and believed his actions were captured on video, according to several people with direct knowledge of the meeting.

Warden Clemmons said the incident was under review, according to several people with direct knowledge of the meeting. He told them he had a “zero tolerance” policy, they said, and that the department’s Office of Inspector General would open an investigation.

For months, the employees who complained assumed Hollis had been fired.


Then, last month, an employee at the prison observed Hollis in a different part of the facility. That prompted another complaint and another meeting with the warden, this time with several more members of the medical health unit staff attending, according to people with direct knowledge of the meeting.

Employees who attended the meeting described it as “punitive” and felt the administration was more upset that they had reported the abuses than they were disturbed about the misconduct by officers.

Glady, the department spokeswoman, said “Warden Clemmons has made diligent efforts to ensure all of his employees, to include contract staff, feel comfortable reporting any perceived misconduct without fear of retaliation.”

A representative from Centurion also defended the administration’s actions during the meeting, saying the “warden’s reputation is beyond reproach,” according to several people with direct knowledge of the meeting.

The Times-Union has left multiple messages with Centurion seeking comment but has not yet heard back from the company.

‘THAT’S WHAT THEY DO’

Phyllis Johnson-Mabery, Cuebas’ mother, said she doesn’t believe her son killed himself.

She shared letters Cuebas had written home, expressing fears that officers were going to hurt him, kill him or hire other prisoners to do the job for them.

“They tell me they are going to brutally murder me and cover it up, then tell my family that I did it to myself, or just make something up, because that’s what they do” Cuebas wrote in a letter to his mother dated about a year before he died.

Johnson-Mabery shared an unredacted report on Cuebas’ death that described trauma to his face and head, but attributed those injuries to “when the ligature was untied and the decedent fell onto the tile floor.”

Cuebas was still breathing when he was cut down, the report also noted.

According to the report, Cuebas was hiding the sheet from correctional officers, but several employees questioned how he could have gotten a sheet there in the first place. Inmates are escorted to the shower cells wearing only their boxers, with guards holding them by their arms, they said.

The Department of Corrections faces wrongful death lawsuits not uncommonly, including those that raise questions about deaths that were ruled as suicides by the department’s Office of Inspector General.

Johnson-Mabery said Cuebas “just wanted to do his time, never go back there again, and just get back to his family.”

“I knew he would be different. As a mother, you know,” Johnson-Mabery said. “I knew the Michael I knew was no longer, and that a broken person was coming out. But we were prepared and ready to get him the help that he needed.”