Inmates Say Deputies Beat Prisoner

Fellow inmates of a prisoner who died after an altercation with sheriff’s deputies at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility say he was beaten by deputies as he lay face down and handcuffed.

The prisoners’ version, pieced together from nine interviews conducted at the jail and by phone, contradicts the account of the sheriff’s news release, which said Danny Smith, 34, attacked deputies when they took off his handcuffs. According to the Sheriff’s Department, Smith died after an ensuing struggle with the deputies.

Prisoners said the Aug. 1 incident began when two deputies, a sergeant and a jail worker tried to place Smith, who is black, in a cell with a Latino prisoner--ignoring a standard procedure that inmates generally are segregated in a jail where violence often erupts along racial lines.

When Smith resisted, inmates said, deputies pushed him to the floor, choking him with a flashlight and kneeing him in the back while they kicked and beat him. Smith yelled that he couldn’t breathe, that he had a bad heart, and begged them not to kill him, inmates said. Only when Smith was motionless and authorities began efforts to revive him did deputies remove his handcuffs, inmates said.

The account of the prisoners, many of them in jail for crimes such as narcotics possession, bank robbery and carjacking, casts further doubt on the circumstances of a death that is the subject of an investigation by the Sheriff’s Department.

Don Mauro, captain of the department’s homicide division, said the results of the in-house probe will be referred to the district attorney’s office for evaluation. He said the FBI and the Department of Justice probably will look into the incident as well, though federal representatives could not immediately confirm their involvement.

“This matter continues to be under investigation,” Mauro said. “Until then we will have no comment.”

A Sheriff’s Department news release says Smith attacked a deputy after his escorts removed his handcuffs. As deputies attempted to subdue him, Smith collapsed and department members began cardiopulmonary resuscitation, it said.

The press release then contradicts itself, saying first that Smith died in jail, and then that Smith died at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office appears unlikely to shed light on the matter any time soon.

The office conducted an autopsy on Smith last week, but its staff will not determine the cause of death or release any information until they assemble all the outstanding information, such as the police report on the incident and the results of toxicology tests, which could take six to eight weeks, spokesman Scott Carrier said.

One nationally respected forensic pathologist called that time frame “ridiculous.”

“They just want to buy time,” said forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht, the elected coroner of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania. “I can’t think of toxicology tests that take six to eight weeks, unless it’s some very esoteric toxins, and I can’t image them dealing with a poisonous South African toad or a South American viper or spider.”

In a case like this, it would be appropriate to conduct tests to determine whether the inmate was on medication or drugs that could produce a state of hyper-excitability and cardiac arrhythmia, he said. Ninety percent of toxicology tests take two or three days, although a smaller number can take a week.

“But not six to eight weeks,” he said. “They’ve got a hot case. Everybody is just biding time.”

On Tuesday, sheriff’s representatives are expected to discuss the incident with the county Board of Supervisors. They would like to have a private, closed-door executive session because they believe that the case will culminate in a wrongful death lawsuit, regardless of whether the Sheriff’s Department is ultimately deemed responsible, department officials said.

Sheriff’s representatives said they could not release the names of the deputies who the prisoners said were involved in or present during the incident.

The incident took place, inmates said, in a cellblock in which many of the prisoners are on medication for disorders ranging from epilepsy to mental health problems.

James Woods, an inmate who says he was jailed for violating parole after a grand theft conviction, said the incident began when two deputies escorted Smith to a disciplinary cell with a county “turnkey.”

When they got to the door of the cell--which was occupied by a prisoner named Francisco Figueroa--Smith asked a deputy why they were placing him with a Latino.

“As a result of all the racial conflict that has taken place among the blacks and Mexicans, and it being Danny Smith from Compton, he did not want to go into a cell with a Mexican,” said another prisoner, Cordell Gaddy.

It was then that a deputy kneed Smith in the back of his knees, throwing him off balance and slamming him onto the concrete floor, Woods said.

Another deputy kicked him while a third officer held a flashlight under his throat, cutting off his wind, Woods said.

“I heard the guy holler, ‘Please don’t kill me, I can’t breathe,’ ” said Gaddy, a convicted bank robber who said he is awaiting trial on carjacking charges. “They were choking him out.”

A supervising officer looked concerned and tapped two of those involved on the back, but they ignored him, and he walked away, returning when Smith became still, according to the inmates.