Deputies Harassed Gay Inmates at Jail, ACLU Says

The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday demanded an investigation into claims by gay inmates at a Los Angeles County jail that sheriff’s deputies subjected them last month to insults and a humiliating strip search in front of other prisoners.

In a letter to sheriff’s officials, the ACLU said inmates reported that deputies in the Men’s Central Jail forced about 20 gay detainees to remove all their clothes in a busy hallway. While they complied, the inmates said, some deputies called them derogatory names and taunted them with vulgar sexual language, the letter said.

“Such behavior by staff demonstrates a level of immaturity, lack of professionalism, and sadism, which tarnishes the reputation of the entire department,” wrote Ricardo Garcia and Jody Kent, who monitor jailhouse issues for the ACLU of Southern California. The letter called for increased anti-discrimination training for all deputies.

A Sheriff’s Department spokesman said jail supervisors launched an investigation two weeks ago into the alleged incident of July 19. The department’s Equity Oversight Panel, which investigates discrimination allegations against sheriff’s employees, is also reviewing the claims.

“If there is any truth to this, we will certainly act in the appropriate manner,” said sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore. “Obviously, this is absolutely unacceptable. This flies in the face of everything the sheriff stands for -- everything that the department stands for.”

Whitmore said the department had made efforts to improve treatment of gay inmates, allowing condoms into the jail and testing prisoners for HIV. Deputies, he said, are required to pledge that, as part of the department’s core values, they will fight against homophobia.

In the county’s overcrowded jails, gay people are segregated from other inmates and housed in their own dormitories. The inmates were returning to those areas on the third floor of Men’s Central from a class when they were stopped and searched, ACLU officials said.

Kent said that the ACLU had received sporadic complaints in the past from gay inmates upset about hostile treatment from jail guards but that the recent allegations were by far the most disturbing.

“They feel very angry, understandably,” said Kent, who interviewed five inmates Thursday at length. “Some of them are shocked that something like this could occur. And, unfortunately, some of them weren’t all that shocked.”