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Inmate Alleges That 6 Deputies Beat Him in Jail

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Times Staff Writer

An Orange County Jail inmate filed a federal lawsuit Thursday alleging that six deputies beat him up in an elevator at the jail after he mildly protested a beating given to a fellow inmate.

Dick Herman, the ACLU attorney who filed the lawsuit, said there will probably be more such lawsuits to come: “Jail conditions have improved, but deputies are still beating up inmates, and it happens regularly.”

Tony W. Taylor, 28, who is awaiting trial on charges of auto theft and parole violation, said in the suit that he is still at the jail and lives in fear of future beatings and assaults by jail personnel.

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Sheriff’s Department officials, who have a standing policy not to comment on such lawsuits, were unavailable for comment Thursday. In the past, however, jail officials have said inmate allegations about beatings are almost always untrue, or else there is some kind of provocation that the inmate fails to state in his lawsuit.

Herman said there was no provocation by Taylor but that the deputies pulled him aside for something he said.

“He was in the chow line and saw another inmate he knew getting hit at the other end,” Herman said. “When the deputies came by, he said, ‘Does that make you feel better?’ So they took him into an elevator and beat hell out of him.”

Herman alleged that Taylor was beaten in an elevator because it’s one of the few places in the jail where an inmate can be assaulted out of sight of the jail’s video cameras or other inmates.

Herman said he will ask that Taylor’s case go before U.S. District Judge William P. Gray, who has been monitoring conditions at the Orange County Jail for more than two years.

The only two deputies mentioned by name as defendants in the lawsuit are “S. Shandrick and B. Carrington.”

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Taylor alleged that he was injured and then received inadequate medical treatment at the jail.

Taylor is seeking damages totaling $700,000 and an order prohibiting retaliation by any jail official.

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