In response to this thread: http://thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=162387&highlight=Fear+Police
This is precisely why many of us are so suspicious of LEO's.
Links to Videos and court papers at bottom.
Link (but you may have to register to view. Article and links appear below.) http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/13790557p-14632251c.html
Watchdog report: Suit alleges jail brutality
Sacramento sheriff's office accused of allowing pattern of abuse by deputies
By Dorothy Korber and Christina Jewett -- Bee Staff Writers
Published 2:15 am PST Sunday, October 30, 2005
Graphic videotapes from the Sacramento County jail - one depicting an inmate lying in a pool of blood after his head hit the floor - are exhibits in a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging that excessive force is sanctioned and an ongoing practice within the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department.
The videos, filed in federal court in Sacramento last week and obtained by The Bee, are from the jail's own surveillance cameras. They were subpoenaed by attorneys for plaintiff Jafar Afshar, a mortgage broker who received the head injury after being arrested for public intoxication on June 7, 2003.
Two other incidents videotaped in the downtown Sacramento jail - both involving men arrested for drunkenness - also are exhibits in the lawsuit.
One shows construction worker Mihaita Constantin, whose nose and arm were broken by deputies after he was "taken down" in July 2003 for standing instead of sitting in the jail's drunk tank, according to a report written by Deputy Timothy Pai, one of five guards who struggled with Constantin.
The third depicts a college student, Michael Hay, whose forearm was fractured in December 2000, when Deputy Santos Ramos twisted it because Hay was not following directions quickly enough, according to Ramos' deposition.
It is not clear from the tape why Afshar is pulled backward to the floor by Deputy Brett Spaid. In an incident report written shortly afterward, Spaid said Afshar swung toward him while handing over his sock during a weapon search.
Making inmates comply with deputies' orders is important to maintaining discipline in the county jail, Undersheriff John McGinness said in an interview Friday. McGinness is second in command under Sheriff Lou Blanas and has announced that he will run in 2006 to succeed Blanas.
After viewing a copy of the video provided by The Bee, McGinness said he could not comment specifically on the tapes since they are part of pending litigation, but he would talk generally about the realities of jail.
"Disruptive behavior can become infectious," McGinness said. "It can get out of control and start a riot."
The department's legal adviser, Lt. Scott Jones, also was present at the viewing and said, "What I saw in each case was definite resistance (by the inmates), in varying degrees."
Sacramento NAACP President Betty Williams, who watched the videotapes earlier, said she was sickened by the violence they depict. Williams said her organization is a clearinghouse for citizens' complaints of police brutality from all races, including - as in these three cases - whites.
"If what the deputies did inside the jail was done in street clothes outside, there would be felony charges," she said. "But because it was done within the protective walls of the Sheriff's Department, they got a slap on the hand."
No deputies involved in the incidents were fired, the Sheriff's Department said. The department would not let the deputies speak to The Bee, and the five deputies called at home did not return calls or would not comment.
Records show that Hay was turned loose about 10 hours after his arm was broken, the charges against him dropped and his broken arm untreated. Afshar, whose scalp was sutured shut at Sutter General Hospital, also was released with no criminal charges. Afshar angrily declined comment on Friday, saying he fears that publicizing the lawsuit endangers his safety.
Hay later sued the Sheriff's Department, alleging police brutality, and obtained a settlement of $147,500 in 2002. He has since left the area, his attorney said, and could not be located.
After the jailhouse skirmish, Constantin was charged with resisting arrest and battery on law enforcement officers - a case later dismissed. He pleaded no contest to the charge that brought him to the jail: driving under the influence. He died last year in a car crash that was ruled a suicide.
A law enforcement expert cited in Afshar's lawsuit said that all three videotaped incidents show excessive force by deputies and demonstrate a pattern of using pain for punishment. The expert, retired sheriff's Lt. Timothy Twomey, is a 30-year veteran with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department who teaches college classes in custody procedure and helped design the Sacramento jail.
Twomey's review of the three cases, according to a declaration filed with the court, led him "to the inescapable conclusion that excessive force is sanctioned and deemed by unwritten policy to be acceptable and a pattern and practice with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department."
"Such conduct breeds other incidents of excessive force," Twomey wrote.
McGinness noted in the interview that deputies are authorized to use force when necessary. "It is imperative that officers maintain control in the interest of protecting the safety of the inmates, the staff and the public who are being protected from the inmates," he said.
The Sheriff's Department did not conduct internal investigations in either the Afshar or Constantin cases, though both injured men were transported to the hospital for emergency care.
An internal investigation was conducted after Hay filed a formal citizen's complaint with the Sheriff's Department. The deputies involved in the injury were reprimanded - not for breaking Hay's arm but for failing to report his injury, according to court documents.
Gary Gorski, Afshar's attorney, said in an interview last week that he intends to use this response to create a foundation for showing that the jail's unwritten policy condones excessive force.
"In their internal affairs investigation, they determined the use of force on Hay was correct - and that establishes this behavior as standard operating procedure in the jail," Gorski said.
The video footage shows the dramatic conclusion of events that started rather mundanely: A neighbor's complaint of loud music. An intoxicated man stumbling down the street after a night on the town. And a drunk driver pulled over by the California Highway Patrol.
The video and documents in the Afshar lawsuit describe what happened next in each case:
The first incident began late on Dec. 22, 2000, when Deputy Rebecca Eubanks went to the apartment of Michael P. Hay to tell him to turn down his music. Hay had been drinking with friends at his apartment near California State University, Sacramento, where he was a student.
Hay, then 21 and apparently drunk, told her that he would keep the noise down and added, "You know, you're kind of cute," according to his own statement.
Eubanks left, but within minutes Deputy Robert Book showed up at the apartment door. Book told investigators that Hay was belligerent and interfered with his finding out what was going on, "so I handcuffed him and walked him downstairs."
He and Eubanks arrested Hay on charges of being drunk in public. In the video, Hay keeps questioning his arrest, puzzled because he was inside his apartment, not in public.
The sheriff's own investigation indicates Hay had reason for confusion. A disciplinary letter to Deputy Book states: "At no time during your contact with Michael H. was he in 'public,' within the meaning of the statute. Therefore your arrest of Michael H. was without legal authority."
On the tape Hay jokes with a nurse who interviews him in the intake area. The nurse is heard telling him: "They like to hurt people around here," though it's not clear whether she is referring to deputies or other inmates.
Deputy Eubanks stands near her prisoner, at times talking to an unidentified male deputy. That officer turns his back to Hay and appears to make a shadow-boxing motion - a gesture expert witness Twomey said suggests that "Mr. Hay's immediate future is going to involve some sort of force."
Eubanks walks Hay to the jail's pat-down area. There he is searched by Deputy Ramos, who is wearing a Santa Claus hat.
Ramos told internal affairs investigators that Hay was intoxicated and not following directions, "so Deputy (Charles) Meeks and I proceeded to place him in twist-lock control holds." On the tape, the deputies twist both of Hay's arms behind his back.
Ramos said he heard a "popping sound," as he twisted Hay's right arm. He later told investigators he hears the sound in 60 to 70 percent of those he puts in a twist lock, but this pop was "louder."
Twomey, however, said he'd never heard such a sound in his three decades with the department.
He also wrote that the "twist lock" is a control move properly used on one arm to make someone turn in response to pain, allowing an officer to regain control. But he said he had never witnessed two twist locks being used - a maneuver the lawsuit alleges is "torture."
Hay was released later that morning, with no charges filed.
He filed an excessive force claim with the Sheriff's Department within a month. Although department policy is to start an internal affairs investigation and mete out any punishment within 90 days, the Hay case was not resolved for more than a year.
In the end, Eubanks was reprimanded for calling Book on her cell phone nine minutes after being interviewed by internal affairs. And Ramos and Deputy Tom McCue were counseled for failing to report the "popping" sound, according to the sheriff's report on the investigation.
Two years later, Jafar Afshar sat in the same seat that Hay had occupied, being interviewed by another nurse in the intake area of the jail.
After leaving the Tunel 21 nightclub in Old Sacramento, Afshar was arrested early that June morning for alleged public intoxication by two Sacramento police officers.
Afshar, then 37, served four years in the Marines, including active duty during Operation Desert Storm, according to Gorski, his lawyer. "If he had wanted to fight the deputies, they would have had their hands full," Gorski said.
In the jail video - which, unlike Hay's, has no sound - Afshar seems relaxed and the jail staff appears comfortable around him, Twomey stated in his declaration. "It is obvious that at no time did (Afshar) pose a threat requiring that he be taken down to the floor."
But Deputy Brett Spaid testified, in a court deposition filed by Gorski, that Afshar was "combative," mumbled something about Columbine and threatened to kill Spaid's family. Spaid said he did not take the threats seriously.
On the tape, Afshar is shown obeying Spaid's order to remove his shoes. Suddenly, Spaid grabs Afshar by the collar, Afshar's body shoots up and back and flips onto the hard floor.
The fall, Twomey said, caused Afshar "to smash his head, (as deputies) spun him onto his stomach and twisted both of his arms toward his shoulders."
On a scale of one to 10 for hardness, Twomey described the jail floor as a 10 and "not effective as a safety measure as it is a very hard material."
Afshar, who acknowledged in his deposition that he doesn't recall much from that night, testified that he heard someone say, "Where is your God now?" before he was knocked to the floor.
After deputies rushed Afshar away to the hospital, the video shows a pool of blood the size of a serving platter on the jail floor. He was released the next morning, all charges dropped. A year later, he filed his lawsuit.
A month after Afshar's encounter with the deputies, Mihaita Constantin also found himself in the Sacramento County jail. Constantin, then a 33-year-old immigrant from Romania, was arrested July 14, 2003, for drunk driving. His blood alcohol was more than triple the legal limit.
The video clip shows Constantin standing by the door in the jail's "sobering tank." Other inmates are seated around the perimeter of the cell.
In Deputy Timothy Pai's report of the incident, he said a deputy identified only as "Deputy Mason," badge no. 461, told Constantin to remain seated in the cell, to which Constantin said, "No." According to this account, when Constantin refused to sit a second time, he was grabbed by the shirt and placed on the floor.
Within seconds, the video shows, four more deputies rush into the cell as Constantin writhes and struggles on the floor. Other guards follow, apparently directing other inmates not to watch.
Noting that the deputies arrived within seconds, Twomey said: "It is glaringly apparent these other deputies were stacked by the door to enter the tank quickly, making it certain they knew they were going to get physically involved, which shows premeditation."
In the fracas, Constantin sustained a broken hand, fractured nose and his face was left swollen and bruised. Taken to an isolation cell, he is seen in another video handcuffed to a floor grate, bleeding and breathing hard.
Deputies' reports stated that Constantin had punched one deputy and bit another, who then hit the inmate twice in the right eye to release the bite. The deputies said they were not injured and required no medical treatment.
Constantin, who spent 48 hours in jail, was charged with two counts of battery on an officer and resisting arrest. One battery count was dismissed the day before his trial in April 2004, at which time a judge acquitted him of the rest. He got three years' probation for driving drunk.
On June 29, 2004, Constantin filed his own federal civil rights lawsuit against the Sheriff's Department. But last May 14, Placer County deputies found his body in a car crashed on a mountain slope near Blue Canyon. The coroner ruled his death a suicide. His widow has returned to Europe but is pursuing the lawsuit.
In the Afshar suit, attorneys for the Sheriff's Department have filed a motion asking U. S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton to reach a summary judgment in their favor. Their motion argues that the department has written policies on appropriate use of force - and points out that Afshar's own recollections of the incident are vague.
On Nov. 7, Karlton is scheduled to consider that motion, along with a counter motion by Afshar's attorneys asking for a summary judgment in his favor. The jail videotapes and other documents were filed in support of that counter motion.
Afshar's case currently is scheduled for trial in May in U.S. District Court in Sacramento.
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages and requests a court order prohibiting "further excessive force" at the jail and monitoring by outside consultants.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIDEOS
Quicktime video player
Jafar Afshar http://www.sacbee.com/static/live/video/afshar_final.mov
Michael P. Hay http://www.sacbee.com/static/live/video/hay_final.mov
Mihaita Constantin http://www.sacbee.com/static/live/video/constantin_final.mov
RealPlayer
Jafar Afsharhttp://www.sacbee.com/static/richmedia/mov/jail/afshar_h.ram
Michael P. Hay http://www.sacbee.com/static/richmedia/mov/jail/hay_h.ram
Mihaita Constantin http://www.sacbee.com/static/richmedia/mov/jail/constantin_h.ram
COURT PAPERS
Expert declaration on use of force - Declaration of Timothy Twomey, expert witness in the case of Jafar Afshar, filed Oct. 24. [PDF]
http://www.sacbee.com/static/richmedia/pdf/1030afshar2.pdf
Amended lawsuit against sheriff's department - Suit filed Oct. 24 by attorneys Gary W. Gorski and Daniel M. Karalash with "Demand for a Jury Trial" in the case of Jafar Afshar. [PDF]
http://www.sacbee.com/static/richmedia/pdf/1030afshar1.pdf
Facts in favor of sheriff's department - Attorneys for the Sheriff's Department on Sept. 26 asked the court for a summary judgment in the department's favor in the case of Jafar Afshar. [PDF]
http://www.sacbee.com/static/richmedia/pdf/1030afshar3.pdf
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A LOOK AT THE CASES
Three alleged instances of abuse by deputies at the Sacramento County jail, with images from court documents:
Jafar Afshar
Age: 37
Booking charges: public intoxication
Injury: split scalp
Internal investigation: none
Deputy involved: Brett Spaid
Michael P. Hay
Age: 21
Booking charges: public intoxication
Injury: broken arm
Internal investigation: Conducted
Deputies involved: Rebecca Eubanks - reprimand for talking about internal affairs investigation, plus proposed 40-hour suspension without pay; Robert Book - proposed 20-hour suspension for arresting Hay in his apartment on charges of public intoxication; Santos Ramos - counseling for not reporting injury; Tom McCue - counseling for not reporting injury
Mihaita Constantin
Age: 33
Booking charges: driving under the influence
Injury: fractured nose and hand, contusion to eye and lip, various cuts
Internal investigation: none
Deputies involved: Timothy Pai; five others identified by last name, badge number: Mason, 461; Parker, 1377; Morck, 1318, and De la Cruz, 1034
About the writer:
The Bee's Dorothy Korber can be reached at (916) 321-1061 or [email protected] and Christina Jewett can be reached at (916) 321-1201 or [email protected].
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is precisely why many of us are so suspicious of LEO's.
Links to Videos and court papers at bottom.
Link (but you may have to register to view. Article and links appear below.) http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/13790557p-14632251c.html
Watchdog report: Suit alleges jail brutality
Sacramento sheriff's office accused of allowing pattern of abuse by deputies
By Dorothy Korber and Christina Jewett -- Bee Staff Writers
Published 2:15 am PST Sunday, October 30, 2005
Graphic videotapes from the Sacramento County jail - one depicting an inmate lying in a pool of blood after his head hit the floor - are exhibits in a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging that excessive force is sanctioned and an ongoing practice within the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department.
The videos, filed in federal court in Sacramento last week and obtained by The Bee, are from the jail's own surveillance cameras. They were subpoenaed by attorneys for plaintiff Jafar Afshar, a mortgage broker who received the head injury after being arrested for public intoxication on June 7, 2003.
Two other incidents videotaped in the downtown Sacramento jail - both involving men arrested for drunkenness - also are exhibits in the lawsuit.
One shows construction worker Mihaita Constantin, whose nose and arm were broken by deputies after he was "taken down" in July 2003 for standing instead of sitting in the jail's drunk tank, according to a report written by Deputy Timothy Pai, one of five guards who struggled with Constantin.
The third depicts a college student, Michael Hay, whose forearm was fractured in December 2000, when Deputy Santos Ramos twisted it because Hay was not following directions quickly enough, according to Ramos' deposition.
It is not clear from the tape why Afshar is pulled backward to the floor by Deputy Brett Spaid. In an incident report written shortly afterward, Spaid said Afshar swung toward him while handing over his sock during a weapon search.
Making inmates comply with deputies' orders is important to maintaining discipline in the county jail, Undersheriff John McGinness said in an interview Friday. McGinness is second in command under Sheriff Lou Blanas and has announced that he will run in 2006 to succeed Blanas.
After viewing a copy of the video provided by The Bee, McGinness said he could not comment specifically on the tapes since they are part of pending litigation, but he would talk generally about the realities of jail.
"Disruptive behavior can become infectious," McGinness said. "It can get out of control and start a riot."
The department's legal adviser, Lt. Scott Jones, also was present at the viewing and said, "What I saw in each case was definite resistance (by the inmates), in varying degrees."
Sacramento NAACP President Betty Williams, who watched the videotapes earlier, said she was sickened by the violence they depict. Williams said her organization is a clearinghouse for citizens' complaints of police brutality from all races, including - as in these three cases - whites.
"If what the deputies did inside the jail was done in street clothes outside, there would be felony charges," she said. "But because it was done within the protective walls of the Sheriff's Department, they got a slap on the hand."
No deputies involved in the incidents were fired, the Sheriff's Department said. The department would not let the deputies speak to The Bee, and the five deputies called at home did not return calls or would not comment.
Records show that Hay was turned loose about 10 hours after his arm was broken, the charges against him dropped and his broken arm untreated. Afshar, whose scalp was sutured shut at Sutter General Hospital, also was released with no criminal charges. Afshar angrily declined comment on Friday, saying he fears that publicizing the lawsuit endangers his safety.
Hay later sued the Sheriff's Department, alleging police brutality, and obtained a settlement of $147,500 in 2002. He has since left the area, his attorney said, and could not be located.
After the jailhouse skirmish, Constantin was charged with resisting arrest and battery on law enforcement officers - a case later dismissed. He pleaded no contest to the charge that brought him to the jail: driving under the influence. He died last year in a car crash that was ruled a suicide.
A law enforcement expert cited in Afshar's lawsuit said that all three videotaped incidents show excessive force by deputies and demonstrate a pattern of using pain for punishment. The expert, retired sheriff's Lt. Timothy Twomey, is a 30-year veteran with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department who teaches college classes in custody procedure and helped design the Sacramento jail.
Twomey's review of the three cases, according to a declaration filed with the court, led him "to the inescapable conclusion that excessive force is sanctioned and deemed by unwritten policy to be acceptable and a pattern and practice with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department."
"Such conduct breeds other incidents of excessive force," Twomey wrote.
McGinness noted in the interview that deputies are authorized to use force when necessary. "It is imperative that officers maintain control in the interest of protecting the safety of the inmates, the staff and the public who are being protected from the inmates," he said.
The Sheriff's Department did not conduct internal investigations in either the Afshar or Constantin cases, though both injured men were transported to the hospital for emergency care.
An internal investigation was conducted after Hay filed a formal citizen's complaint with the Sheriff's Department. The deputies involved in the injury were reprimanded - not for breaking Hay's arm but for failing to report his injury, according to court documents.
Gary Gorski, Afshar's attorney, said in an interview last week that he intends to use this response to create a foundation for showing that the jail's unwritten policy condones excessive force.
"In their internal affairs investigation, they determined the use of force on Hay was correct - and that establishes this behavior as standard operating procedure in the jail," Gorski said.
The video footage shows the dramatic conclusion of events that started rather mundanely: A neighbor's complaint of loud music. An intoxicated man stumbling down the street after a night on the town. And a drunk driver pulled over by the California Highway Patrol.
The video and documents in the Afshar lawsuit describe what happened next in each case:
The first incident began late on Dec. 22, 2000, when Deputy Rebecca Eubanks went to the apartment of Michael P. Hay to tell him to turn down his music. Hay had been drinking with friends at his apartment near California State University, Sacramento, where he was a student.
Hay, then 21 and apparently drunk, told her that he would keep the noise down and added, "You know, you're kind of cute," according to his own statement.
Eubanks left, but within minutes Deputy Robert Book showed up at the apartment door. Book told investigators that Hay was belligerent and interfered with his finding out what was going on, "so I handcuffed him and walked him downstairs."
He and Eubanks arrested Hay on charges of being drunk in public. In the video, Hay keeps questioning his arrest, puzzled because he was inside his apartment, not in public.
The sheriff's own investigation indicates Hay had reason for confusion. A disciplinary letter to Deputy Book states: "At no time during your contact with Michael H. was he in 'public,' within the meaning of the statute. Therefore your arrest of Michael H. was without legal authority."
On the tape Hay jokes with a nurse who interviews him in the intake area. The nurse is heard telling him: "They like to hurt people around here," though it's not clear whether she is referring to deputies or other inmates.
Deputy Eubanks stands near her prisoner, at times talking to an unidentified male deputy. That officer turns his back to Hay and appears to make a shadow-boxing motion - a gesture expert witness Twomey said suggests that "Mr. Hay's immediate future is going to involve some sort of force."
Eubanks walks Hay to the jail's pat-down area. There he is searched by Deputy Ramos, who is wearing a Santa Claus hat.
Ramos told internal affairs investigators that Hay was intoxicated and not following directions, "so Deputy (Charles) Meeks and I proceeded to place him in twist-lock control holds." On the tape, the deputies twist both of Hay's arms behind his back.
Ramos said he heard a "popping sound," as he twisted Hay's right arm. He later told investigators he hears the sound in 60 to 70 percent of those he puts in a twist lock, but this pop was "louder."
Twomey, however, said he'd never heard such a sound in his three decades with the department.
He also wrote that the "twist lock" is a control move properly used on one arm to make someone turn in response to pain, allowing an officer to regain control. But he said he had never witnessed two twist locks being used - a maneuver the lawsuit alleges is "torture."
Hay was released later that morning, with no charges filed.
He filed an excessive force claim with the Sheriff's Department within a month. Although department policy is to start an internal affairs investigation and mete out any punishment within 90 days, the Hay case was not resolved for more than a year.
In the end, Eubanks was reprimanded for calling Book on her cell phone nine minutes after being interviewed by internal affairs. And Ramos and Deputy Tom McCue were counseled for failing to report the "popping" sound, according to the sheriff's report on the investigation.
Two years later, Jafar Afshar sat in the same seat that Hay had occupied, being interviewed by another nurse in the intake area of the jail.
After leaving the Tunel 21 nightclub in Old Sacramento, Afshar was arrested early that June morning for alleged public intoxication by two Sacramento police officers.
Afshar, then 37, served four years in the Marines, including active duty during Operation Desert Storm, according to Gorski, his lawyer. "If he had wanted to fight the deputies, they would have had their hands full," Gorski said.
In the jail video - which, unlike Hay's, has no sound - Afshar seems relaxed and the jail staff appears comfortable around him, Twomey stated in his declaration. "It is obvious that at no time did (Afshar) pose a threat requiring that he be taken down to the floor."
But Deputy Brett Spaid testified, in a court deposition filed by Gorski, that Afshar was "combative," mumbled something about Columbine and threatened to kill Spaid's family. Spaid said he did not take the threats seriously.
On the tape, Afshar is shown obeying Spaid's order to remove his shoes. Suddenly, Spaid grabs Afshar by the collar, Afshar's body shoots up and back and flips onto the hard floor.
The fall, Twomey said, caused Afshar "to smash his head, (as deputies) spun him onto his stomach and twisted both of his arms toward his shoulders."
On a scale of one to 10 for hardness, Twomey described the jail floor as a 10 and "not effective as a safety measure as it is a very hard material."
Afshar, who acknowledged in his deposition that he doesn't recall much from that night, testified that he heard someone say, "Where is your God now?" before he was knocked to the floor.
After deputies rushed Afshar away to the hospital, the video shows a pool of blood the size of a serving platter on the jail floor. He was released the next morning, all charges dropped. A year later, he filed his lawsuit.
A month after Afshar's encounter with the deputies, Mihaita Constantin also found himself in the Sacramento County jail. Constantin, then a 33-year-old immigrant from Romania, was arrested July 14, 2003, for drunk driving. His blood alcohol was more than triple the legal limit.
The video clip shows Constantin standing by the door in the jail's "sobering tank." Other inmates are seated around the perimeter of the cell.
In Deputy Timothy Pai's report of the incident, he said a deputy identified only as "Deputy Mason," badge no. 461, told Constantin to remain seated in the cell, to which Constantin said, "No." According to this account, when Constantin refused to sit a second time, he was grabbed by the shirt and placed on the floor.
Within seconds, the video shows, four more deputies rush into the cell as Constantin writhes and struggles on the floor. Other guards follow, apparently directing other inmates not to watch.
Noting that the deputies arrived within seconds, Twomey said: "It is glaringly apparent these other deputies were stacked by the door to enter the tank quickly, making it certain they knew they were going to get physically involved, which shows premeditation."
In the fracas, Constantin sustained a broken hand, fractured nose and his face was left swollen and bruised. Taken to an isolation cell, he is seen in another video handcuffed to a floor grate, bleeding and breathing hard.
Deputies' reports stated that Constantin had punched one deputy and bit another, who then hit the inmate twice in the right eye to release the bite. The deputies said they were not injured and required no medical treatment.
Constantin, who spent 48 hours in jail, was charged with two counts of battery on an officer and resisting arrest. One battery count was dismissed the day before his trial in April 2004, at which time a judge acquitted him of the rest. He got three years' probation for driving drunk.
On June 29, 2004, Constantin filed his own federal civil rights lawsuit against the Sheriff's Department. But last May 14, Placer County deputies found his body in a car crashed on a mountain slope near Blue Canyon. The coroner ruled his death a suicide. His widow has returned to Europe but is pursuing the lawsuit.
In the Afshar suit, attorneys for the Sheriff's Department have filed a motion asking U. S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton to reach a summary judgment in their favor. Their motion argues that the department has written policies on appropriate use of force - and points out that Afshar's own recollections of the incident are vague.
On Nov. 7, Karlton is scheduled to consider that motion, along with a counter motion by Afshar's attorneys asking for a summary judgment in his favor. The jail videotapes and other documents were filed in support of that counter motion.
Afshar's case currently is scheduled for trial in May in U.S. District Court in Sacramento.
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages and requests a court order prohibiting "further excessive force" at the jail and monitoring by outside consultants.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIDEOS
Quicktime video player
Jafar Afshar http://www.sacbee.com/static/live/video/afshar_final.mov
Michael P. Hay http://www.sacbee.com/static/live/video/hay_final.mov
Mihaita Constantin http://www.sacbee.com/static/live/video/constantin_final.mov
RealPlayer
Jafar Afsharhttp://www.sacbee.com/static/richmedia/mov/jail/afshar_h.ram
Michael P. Hay http://www.sacbee.com/static/richmedia/mov/jail/hay_h.ram
Mihaita Constantin http://www.sacbee.com/static/richmedia/mov/jail/constantin_h.ram
COURT PAPERS
Expert declaration on use of force - Declaration of Timothy Twomey, expert witness in the case of Jafar Afshar, filed Oct. 24. [PDF]
http://www.sacbee.com/static/richmedia/pdf/1030afshar2.pdf
Amended lawsuit against sheriff's department - Suit filed Oct. 24 by attorneys Gary W. Gorski and Daniel M. Karalash with "Demand for a Jury Trial" in the case of Jafar Afshar. [PDF]
http://www.sacbee.com/static/richmedia/pdf/1030afshar1.pdf
Facts in favor of sheriff's department - Attorneys for the Sheriff's Department on Sept. 26 asked the court for a summary judgment in the department's favor in the case of Jafar Afshar. [PDF]
http://www.sacbee.com/static/richmedia/pdf/1030afshar3.pdf
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A LOOK AT THE CASES
Three alleged instances of abuse by deputies at the Sacramento County jail, with images from court documents:
Jafar Afshar
Age: 37
Booking charges: public intoxication
Injury: split scalp
Internal investigation: none
Deputy involved: Brett Spaid
Michael P. Hay
Age: 21
Booking charges: public intoxication
Injury: broken arm
Internal investigation: Conducted
Deputies involved: Rebecca Eubanks - reprimand for talking about internal affairs investigation, plus proposed 40-hour suspension without pay; Robert Book - proposed 20-hour suspension for arresting Hay in his apartment on charges of public intoxication; Santos Ramos - counseling for not reporting injury; Tom McCue - counseling for not reporting injury
Mihaita Constantin
Age: 33
Booking charges: driving under the influence
Injury: fractured nose and hand, contusion to eye and lip, various cuts
Internal investigation: none
Deputies involved: Timothy Pai; five others identified by last name, badge number: Mason, 461; Parker, 1377; Morck, 1318, and De la Cruz, 1034
About the writer:
The Bee's Dorothy Korber can be reached at (916) 321-1061 or [email protected] and Christina Jewett can be reached at (916) 321-1201 or [email protected].
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
