Complaint Filed Over Jailers’ Alleged Attack

An El Cajon jail inmate filed a formal complaint Tuesday alleging that he was severely beaten by seven deputies in what the local American Civil Liberties Union now says fits a pattern of reported assaults by sheriff’s deputies known among inmates as the “Rambo Squad” and the “Wrecking Crew.”

Orned (Chicken) Gabriel said in his complaint that on March 29 he was handcuffed behind his back, stretched face down on the floor and punched and kicked by the deputies. He said the beating was a direct retaliation for his attempt to send an affidavit raising concerns about jail crowding to the ACLU and for his friendship with Sagon Penn, his former karate student who killed a San Diego police officer and was acquitted of charges stemming from the slaying.

“This is certainly extremely serious,” said Betty Wheeler, the legal director of the local ACLU chapter who assisted Gabriel in filing the complaint.

“It’s serious if someone was beaten and, No. 2, if someone is retaliated against because they are engaging in an attempt to see that constitutional jail conditions are in place or otherwise to communicate on legal matters with lawyers.

“That’s of enormous concern to us.”

Formal Affidavit

On the day of the alleged beating, Gabriel wrote a formal affidavit to the ACLU, one of about 40 similar affidavits the agency has received from inmates. The ACLU plans to use the affidavits as evidence in its class-action lawsuit alleging poor conditions in the East County Detention Facility in El Cajon and the other four outlying jails.

The affidavits cover a series of topics, such as crowding and health care, and ask the inmates a number of questions about any assaults or other acts of violence by deputies against inmates.

Wheeler said many of the inmate affidavits allege serious assaults by a select group of deputies in El Cajon.

“There appears to be particular concern with a certain shift at El Cajon, and I think there are a number of concerns raised by the inmates about them,” she said. “They refer to them as the ‘Wrecking Crew’ or the ‘Rambo Squad’.

“The general allegation is that they like to mix it up. And very readily. They use physical force fairly often in circumstances in which the inmates believe it is excessive.”

Sheriff John Duffy could not be reached for comment Tuesday. His spokesman, Lt. Alan Fulmer, said, “Our comment is that we will have no comment” until after an internal affairs investigation of Gabriel’s complaint is completed.

Primary Responsibility

“When a complaint is filed, it is forwarded over to internal affairs,” he said. “They have the primary responsibility for investigating complaints of this nature.

“And they will do this investigation just like they would any other investigation. They’ll talk to all the witnesses, get the facts, put them down and make a determination.”

Fulmer added that the investigation could last one to two months.

Last week, senior jailers said that Gabriel, 37, had told them he had been assaulted, but that the jail staff “did not deem it to be valid.”

A doctor who examined Gabriel recently concluded that the inmate suffered head, shoulder, back, arm and leg injuries that were “consistent with” the alleged beating.

“His complaints of headaches and dizziness were felt compatible with evidence of head trauma,” the doctor wrote in his report.