ACLU Creates County Hot Line to Gain Data on Police Abuse Cases

Concerned that police abuse and assaults on jail inmates by guards have become a “very large problem in this area,” the ACLU on Tuesday created a telephone hot line to monitor abuse cases and refer alleged victims to attorneys for the filing of civil rights lawsuits.

The 24-hour Police Hot Line will be manned by volunteers who in the past have alleged that they were victims of police brutality. The information gathered will be used to establish a computer data base on alleged police misconduct that the American Civil Liberties Union hopes will influence area police agencies to correct problems and discipline officers.

In addition, Michael Crowley, chairman of the police practices committee of the local ACLU, said the group will begin training attorneys on how to handle complicated civil rights cases on behalf of police abuse victims.

The main purpose, he said, is to help provide legal assistance and psychiatric counseling to victims.

‘The Same Harassment Stories’

“I think that the reported abuse has become a very large problem in this area,” Crowley said. “The stories go over and over again. I sit in my office and continually hear the stories, the same harassment stories concerning abuse.”

But, he said: “People don’t know what to do at all when they feel they’ve been abused by law enforcement in San Diego County. They don’t know where to find attorneys. They receive bad advice. They have deep psychological problems.

“These are the types of problems that can be analogous to rape victims and the type of guilt that they feel. They feel it’s their fault.”

Crowley and Betty Wheeler, the ACLU’s legal director, said they did not discuss the creation of the hot line with law enforcement officials because they expected some resistance to the program.

“If the past record is any indication,” Crowley said, “I think we have a problem in the area of the agencies being receptive.”

Cmdr. Keith Enerson, a San Diego police spokesman, said: “We don’t have any disagreement with them doing anything like that. I think anything that will promote open communications between the Police Department and the citizens, we’re all for.”

Sgt. Bob Takeshta, a spokesman for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, said he was not opposed to the hot line. But he added that his office’s in-house procedures for investigating abuse complaints were already working properly.

“As we get complaints from citizens, we direct them to our Internal Affairs division and we take whatever appropriate action is needed to take,” he said. “We’ll stand by that.”

The hot line is being established at a time in San Diego when allegations of police misconduct have risen sharply.

This spring and summer, dozens of current and former San Diego County jail inmates have stepped forth in lawsuits and media interviews and alleged that they were beaten by guards. In addition, the San Diego Police Department has been criticized for several shootings in which citizens have been killed or wounded by police officers.

Jim Butler, who has filed a suit over an incident several years ago in which he contends he was beaten by Vista jail guards, said he believed rank-and-file deputies would support the hot line.

“There are a lot of good officers out there, we all know that,” he said. “And they will welcome this to weed out the ones that are causing all the problems.”

Orned (Chicken) Gabriel, who has alleged he was beaten in the El Cajon jail, thought the hot line was a good idea, but worried whether inmates would have immediate access to a telephone.

“Usually when you get beat up in the jail, you go straight to the hole,” he said. “There’s no phone down there, so who are you going to call?”

Crowley said one of the main goals of the hot line, fashioned after a similar program in the Los Angeles area, is to train a larger number of attorneys willing to take on complex civil rights cases for police brutality victims. Currently, he said, only a handful of attorneys is willing to represent police abuse clients.

“Civil rights cases are very difficult cases to bring,” he said. “It’s a very specialized area. But we hope to be the lightning rod here at the ACLU. We want to create a database where we can pick up on particular problem areas and particular problem officers.” The hot-line number is 238-1043.