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| Nassau Jail Making Progress |
| By Newsday |
| Published: 04/14/2003 |
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The litigation is over but fallout from the fatal beating of inmate Thomas Pizzuto at the Nassau County, N.Y., jail continues, with federal authorities saying the facility has made 'very substantial progress' toward changing how the use of force against inmates is investigated and regulated. That progress, as observed in a report completed by a federal monitor in February, left the team of attorneys representing the Pizzuto family satisfied that county officials were under sufficient pressure to make systemic changes sought in a wrongful death lawsuit settled last week. The federal report indicates 'they are certainly moving in a positive direction, but it is just the beginning,' said Peter Neufeld, an attorney for Pizzuto's widow, Virginia, and their son, Thomas Jr. Pizzuto, in jail on a 90-day sentence for driving under the influence, died in January 1999, five days after a beating by correction officers who wanted to quiet his demands for methadone, a drug he had taken to overcome heroin addiction. Originally, the lawsuit - settled on Monday for $7.75 million - sought to prove that Nassau County engaged in a 'pattern and practice' of abusing inmates and failing to properly discipline correction officers. Neufeld said several officers who knew of the beating have never been disciplined and one of the suit's goals was to force systemic reforms. But Neufeld said the legal team agreed to take a back seat to the federal government, which conducted a criminal and civil probe and reached a two-year agreement last year with the jail to revamp its use-of-force policy and medical care. The February report, written by Austin, Texas, lawyer Steve J. Martin, said the jail still has to improve staff training and must keep up a system developed last year of having all inmate injuries monitored by a special unit that reports to the sheriff. Martin also found only 'partial compliance' with the agreement's mandate for that unit to 'produce explicit and comprehensive' information on each use of force by a correction officer. Sheriff Ed Reilly, who was hired at the jail after Pizzuto's death, said inmate complaints dropped from 42 in 2000 to 25 in 2002. He said investigators in his special unit have received training from Nassau and New York City police and in-service training went from 24 hours to 40, including 19 on use of force. Reilly said a computer program was developed to keep track of complaints and make sure all were looked into within 60 days. 'We have a lot more work to do but clearly we have come a long way,' Reilly said. Medical care at the jail has been taken over by the Nassau University Medical Center, but last fall a federal monitor said the program still had serious flaws. County officials, citing the lack of compliance, were then calling for the resignation of the hospital's medical director, James Neal. Reilly said since then, high- level county officials were meeting weekly with hospital doctors to improve compliance. |
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