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| Federal inquiry widens at jail |
| By Charlotte Observer |
| Published: 09/23/2003 |
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The U.S. Justice Department has broadened its investigation into alleged inmate beatings at North Carolina's Mecklenburg County jail. The FBI has interviewed at least three former jail inmates about their allegations that deputies and detention officers beat them, according to sources. Several former jail inmates have testified before a federal grand jury looking into the alleged beatings at the jail, sources said. Chris Swecker, who heads the FBI in North Carolina, acknowledged that FBI agents are investigating alleged beatings of inmates at the jail and possible violations of civil rights. Swecker would not talk about the grand jury investigation. Five lawsuits alleging that sheriff's deputies and detention officers used excessive force against inmates are now pending in federal court in Charlotte. Another lawsuit accusing detention officers of beating an inmate was thrown out last week. Mecklenburg Sheriff Jim Pendergraph and his officers have denied the allegations. Deputies and detention officers in all six cases, according to jail authorities, had to bring unruly inmates under control. 'Jail beatings just don't happen,' Pendergraph said in an interview. 'I think these are false allegations. We don't have any evidence anyone was assaulted in our jail. 'We're dealing with people who have nothing to lose by suing and hoping the county will settle with them for some amount of money. They don't have any evidence that what they're alleging occurred.' Paul Dameron Midgett, 43, claims that in May 2000 he was struck, restrained and stomped by sheriff's deputies and detention officers. His lawsuit alleges that excessive force is customarily used to keep and guard inmates at the Mecklenburg jail. Willie McKinnon, 44, alleges that in September 2000 he was maced, beaten and kicked and then handcuffed and dragged from his cell along the floor and over steps and other obstacles. His case has been dismissed. Dwight Cole, 36, says he was taunted, laughed at, beaten and put in a restraint chair in August 2001. He says a deputy tapped his genitals with a stick or baton and then made fun of him. Robert Foster, 40, says he was beaten and left on the floor in a pool of blood in November 2001. He says he was bleeding from his eyes, mouth and ears and that two of his teeth were knocked out. Foster's lawsuit claims that detention officers on multiple occasions have 'brutalized and tortured' prisoners. The FBI investigation into the alleged jail inmate beatings is being coordinated out of Washington by the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division. Vic O'Korn, second in command of the FBI in North Carolina, said he's not aware of any other Justice Department investigations into alleged beatings of jail inmates anywhere else in the state during his 12 years as an FBI agent in Charlotte. Since 1980, the Justice Department's special litigation section within the civil rights division has investigated more than 100 jails and prisons across the country. The special litigation section investigates everything from use of excessive force and medical care access to environmental conditions at jails, prisons, nursing homes, mental health facilities and other institutions. Last month, a former inmate who claimed he'd been beaten in Mecklenburg's jail won a jury verdict in state court in Charlotte. The jury, after viewing a videotape of a violent confrontation between sheriff's deputies and the inmate, ruled that a deputy had assaulted Stacy Cunningham. The jurors awarded the 40-year-old former jail inmate $49,500. Jurors had repeatedly watched the videotape of deputies charging Cunningham and taking the inmate to the floor in November 1997. At one point, a deputy is seen striking Cunningham. Moments later, a deputy appears to be kicking. The verdict was the largest award in an excessive force case in Mecklenburg since Pendergraph, a Democrat, became sheriff in 1994. Mecklenburg's Jail Central is North Carolina's largest jail. It can hold about 1,900 inmates. Every year, about 40,000 inmates are booked into the jail. The Sheriff's Office also runs Jail North, which can hold more than 600 inmates. |
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