Deputies Using Force Too Often, Report Says : Law enforcement: Monitor appointed by county supervisors cites many incidents at jail, and finds that officers are disciplined only lightly for abuses.

Sheriff’s deputies are using “senseless or overly severe” force too often against inmates in the Los Angeles County Jail, a monitor appointed by the Board of Supervisors reported Monday.

In the latest report on the progress of the Sheriff’s Department in achieving recommended reforms, attorney Merrick J. Bobb and staff said, “We found many examples of wholly gratuitous force” initiated by deputies.

There are “too many cases involving unnecessary force in response to verbal taunts or passive noncompliance,” Bobb said. “Most of these arise in the jails, where we found a substantial number of instances where deputies appear to overreact.”

In addition, Bobb said, “the department remains too lenient” in disciplining officers “found to have used unreasonable force.”

The monitor cited several cases in which inmates suffered injuries under what he said were questionable circumstances. In the last six months, Bobb concluded, “our concern about the jails has deepened.”

Responding for Sheriff Sherman Block, Assistant Sheriff Mike Graham said the department is “going to put a task force together to try and investigate” Bobb’s findings “to try and determine exactly what happened in each of these cases and find out if we should take action.”

“If there’s been a failure on the part of our managers and supervisors, then we will take action against anyone who failed to act appropriately,” Graham said. “We should do that over the coming weeks.”

Highlighting one serious problem, Bobb said that young deputies are being kept on guard duty for too long before being sent on regular patrols at the beginning of their careers.

“The length of time young deputies spend in custody rotations continues to grow,” the monitor reported. “Instead of shrinking to the year or two the department stated was its goal in 1992, it is now often five years. The current budget crisis exacerbates this problem.”

Noting that in previous reports he had called for “scrutiny and reform” in the matter, Bobb commented, “We have not seen much [movement] in the last six months. It may be time for the department to take radical steps in this regard.”

But Graham said the sheriff’s office rejects the notion that longer jail service makes deputies more careless with the use of force against inmates. He said the budget cuts have reduced hiring and slowed rapid movement by deputies out of custody assignments.

Although Bobb said in an interview there are many more cases of “slaps and pushes” against inmates than “horrible beatings,” his report cited some severe incidents, along with weak disciplinary follow-up.

“We were dumbfounded with a captain’s exoneration of a sergeant in the following circumstances,” Bobb said. “After a relatively minor altercation with deputies, an inmate, who had a reputation for getting into fights, was brought to the jail infirmary for a physical examination.”

Noting a “slightly elevated” blood pressure, the nurse asked that he be brought back in an hour for another reading.

An hour later, when the nurse actually went to his cell, “the inmate angrily refused to submit to the examination,” Bobb recounted. Rather than waiting, reasoning, or asking the nurse if the blood pressure reading was really necessary, “the sergeant assembled a seven-man team armed with flashlights, Mace and a Taser to extract the inmate from his cell.

“Predictably, a brawl ensued. Several deputies punched the inmate in the face and struck him with flashlights. Another sprayed him with Mace. Yet another shot him with a Taser.” When the deputies finally subdued the inmate, the report said, he “was badly bruised and cut. His jaw was broken so badly that it required surgery.”

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In several other instances, Bobb reported, the use of force was less devastating:

* “One female deputy responded to sexist insults by a handcuffed prisoner by slapping the prisoner in the face. She then unhandcuffed the inmate and challenged him to a fight. She was suspended for two days.”

* “A Latino inmate responded to a deputy’s commands by claiming that he could not understand English. The deputy responded by slapping the inmate in the face. The deputy admitted that the use of force was unnecessary and received a two-day suspension.”

* “An inmate standing in the ‘chow line’ complained about the quality of jailhouse food. A deputy responded by placing the inmate in a wrist lock and shoving him against the wall, causing a minor head injury. . . . The captain of the jail issued a written reprimand for failure to report force and was silent on the issue of whether the use of force itself was proper.”

* “A male deputy swept the legs out from under a handcuffed female inmate who, while uncooperative, posed no threat to the deputy or others. The inmate fell hard on her buttocks, slightly injuring her tailbone.” A two-day suspension was ordered, but “the suspension was subsequently reduced in the grievance process to a written reprimand.”

Bobb said elsewhere in his 84-page report that improper use of force by sheriff’s deputies outside the jails has apparently decreased, and lawsuits against the Sheriff’s Department have also declined in recent years.

But, he complained, discipline meted out by departmental supervisors for excess force in the last two years show a disinclination to impose substantial penalties for serious misconduct.

Bobb said that in about 300 investigations of allegations of excessive force--inside the jails and out--between Jan. 1, 1993, and May 1, 1995, he had reviewed 63 cases in which the department had found such force was used.

Only six of these resulted in discharge from the force, he reported. There was one reduction in rank, eight 16- to 30-day suspensions, eight six- to 15-day suspensions, 24 one- to five-day suspensions, 15 written reprimands and one case of no discipline.

In another part of his report, Bobb said recruitment of women for the sheriff’s force is lagging behind earlier goals, although minority recruitment, particularly among Latinos, is surging.

The report by Bobb and staff was the fourth update since reforms in the Sheriff’s Department were recommended in 1992 by a special commission led by retired Judge James G. Kolts.