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5 Jailers Probed Over Alleged Use of Excessive Force

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Times Staff Writer

Four Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and a sergeant have been reassigned out of the Central County Jail pending an investigation into allegations that they used excessive force against black street gang members locked up at the facility, a jail official said Tuesday.

The investigation involves two recent incidents in the second-floor module where members of the Crips gang are housed, said Capt. William Hinkle, commander of 6,800-inmate jail. He declined to elaborate about the nature of the allegations, saying only that they involved “excessive force.”

“There’s going to be an investigation done by the department,” he said. “It’s an internal investigation. This particular one may very well be investigated as a criminal matter.”

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The announcement followed Hinkle’s confirmation late Monday that the sheriff’s internal investigations bureau has begun an investigation into reports that white deputies a year ago burned two crosses in quarters housing black gang members. Hinkle said his staff is also investigating allegations that a white deputy broadcast racial slurs over a public address system two weeks ago, touching off a noisy inmate demonstration in the Crip module.

The jail commander has declined to identify any of the deputies involved in any of the alleged incidents.

The four deputies and sergeant reassigned out of the jail will continue to receive full pay while performing other duties within the department. Hinkle said the investigation could take two months.

Although all three investigations involve the treatment of black gang members, Hinkle on Tuesday said he views them as separate cases that do not constitute a pattern of racism.

“What you have to keep in mind is we have about 650 sworn employees assigned here,” he said. “We have in excess of 6,800 inmates on a daily basis. . . . And to have such a low number of allegations, I think, is a credit to men and women who have to perform a task with people who have consistently proven they’re unfit for outside society.”

There have been complaints to The Times that some jail supervisors and deputies discriminate against both black deputies and black inmates in the gang sections.

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‘Tinderbox’ Condition

A Sheriff’s Department source familiar with the workings of the jail said the tension between black gang members and deputies has created a “tinderbox” condition.

“This is a cancer that is festering,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Reports of jail cross burnings surfaced Jan. 6 in a county Civil Service hearing for Eugene Harris, a probationary deputy sheriff who was accused of lying in an investigation in which he was charged with taking a candy bar and a hairbrush from inmates.

During the hearing, Harris’ lawyer, Laurence B. Labovitz, asked Deputy George Ricks whether there had been cross-burning incidents in County Jail. Ricks replied, “Yes.” A break in the hearing ensued, and at that time, Labovitz said, Sheriff’s Department advocates offered to drop the charges against Harris if he would resign. Harris accepted the offer, and the hearing ended.

Harris, who was graduated from the Sheriff’s Academy class in September, 1987, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he felt the sting of discrimination during his service in the County Jail.

He said that once when he drove a Cadillac to work, a white sergeant who was his supervisor offered the unsmiling comment: “We’re going to have to investigate you. You must be pimping or dealing.”

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Aware of Allegations

Harris said he was aware of the allegations of cross burnings but had no firsthand knowledge of their accuracy.

Anthony Essex, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said his organization began receiving letters from black inmates last summer. The letters described conditions Essex called “frightening.”

“The concerns were that many of the provocations that were happening were as a result of race,” Essex said. He said NAACP representatives have toured the jail and spoken with inmates and sheriff’s officials.

“What we want to do first is conclude what our findings are and present them to the Sheriff’s Department and let them respond,” he said. “ . . . We hope they’d see the need for some correction.”

Al Albergate, a spokesman for Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, said the district attorney’s office was monitoring the in-house investigation by the Sheriff’s Department and does not plan its own probe at this time.

‘Stay in Touch’

“We definitely are going to stay in touch with the sheriff’s people who are conducting the investigation,” Albergate said.

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Paul Hoffman, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said a member of the ACLU staff met with sheriff officials Tuesday to discuss developments in the jail.

“We’re fully satisfied that they are considering it very, very seriously,” Hoffman said. “We’re assured that they’re looking into all these questions, and they’re doing it as a matter of high priority. We are going to continue to monitor the process.”

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