2 More Deputies Hurt by Inmates, Union Says

Two sheriff’s deputies were treated for injuries they suffered in separate scuffles with inmates at the Orange County Jail, a spokesman for the deputies’ union said Wednesday.

Robert J. MacLeod, general manager for the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, said the deputies were the fifth and sixth injured by jail inmates since Monday night.

The union claims that the jail is an increasingly dangerous place for deputies to work. Four were treated and released from a hospital for injuries they suffered in two incidents Monday night. About 30 deputies are responsible for about 2,000 men at the Santa Ana facility.

Deputies have authorized the union to take job actions, if necessary, to force improvements in working conditions. MacLeod has said he hopes to improve conditions through negotiations and to reserve job action as a last resort.

MacLeod said Wednesday that deputies James Slikker and James Bau, both 22, were treated and released from Western Medical Center in Santa Ana.

Bau was injured about 4 p.m. Tuesday during a scuffle with a inmate considered to be mentally unstable, MacLeod said. He said it took six to eight deputies to get the inmate from the jail’s clothing exchange area to a padded, protective cell. Bau’s arm was put in a cast, MacLeod said, but he said he had no further information on the injury.

Slikker was bitten on one of his hands and injured his right wrist during a scuffle Wednesday with another “emotionally volatile inmate,” MacLeod said. He said Slikker had his wrist splinted at Western Medical Center.

Lt. Dick Olson, spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department, said he had “heard that (Bau) had a swollen hand and went by the medical center on his way home from work.” But, Olson said, the severity of Bau’s injuries were unknown because the deputy had not filed a report.

Olson said he knew nothing of Slikker’s jail-house scuffle.