Jail Deputies Allegedly Urged Inmate Beatings

At least six and possibly as many as 14 Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies are under criminal investigation for allegedly encouraging trusties at the Men’s Central Jail to beat inmates accused of child molestation, according to sources and department officials.

The agency’s probe into the deputies’ alleged misconduct began several weeks ago, after an accused sex offender told jail administrators that other inmates had beaten him. Several trusties--inmates who have been granted special privileges--later said deputies had urged them to participate in the attacks, the sources said.

The sheriff’s internal affairs investigators are looking into a dozen cases in which molestation suspects were either beaten or injured at the jail. The beaten inmates’ injuries ranged from bumps and bruises to broken facial bones, said sheriff’s custody chief Barry King.

So far, a deputy and a civilian employee have been relieved of duty in connection with the beatings, officials said. More suspensions are expected.

“The deputies would give the trusties the housing location of the inmates so they could go down there and beat the hell out of them,” said a source familiar with the investigation. “Or they would send the inmate into the day room, and the trusties would go in en masse. . . . This is strictly brutality. The deputies were setting up inmates to beat people.”

The investigation marks the department’s first large-scale criminal brutality probe in more than 15 years, officials said. The last case involved half a dozen deputies who beat a man booked on suspicion of assaulting a police officer.

“People are placed in our jail as punishment, and not for punishment,” Sheriff Sherman Block said Wednesday. “When they are in our custody, we don’t have any right to physically--or in any other way--abuse them. . . . So whenever something like this happens, it’s embarrassing, to say the least. I believe people should know better than to engage in this kind of conduct.

“The investigation is proceeding. What ultimately comes out of it remains to be seen,” he added.

King said an administrator at the Men’s Central Jail first realized that something was amiss at the end of December, when he noticed a trusty carrying a stack of computer printouts listing the housing locations for various inmates along with the charges against them. “The supervisor started an inquiry as to why an inmate would have this kind of information,” King said. “The next day, the same supervisor got a couple of inmate injury reports. He noticed that these injuries involved child molester suspects.”

During the last week in January, sheriff’s officials received information from inmates that molestation suspects held in the Men’s Central Jail were being attacked. At that point, King said, the officials requested that the internal affairs division be brought in to conduct a criminal inquiry. Investigators from the district attorney’s office were asked to join the probe this week.

King said the investigation is focusing on half a dozen deputies. However, according to one source, as many as 14 law enforcement officers may have been involved in either encouraging the beatings or failing to halt them. “You have deputies acting like they’re in a Clint Eastwood movie,” the source said.

The accused child molesters--nearly 90 in all--have since been moved out of the Men’s Central Jail and placed in protective custody at the Pitchess Detention Center, where they are being held in a special dorm.

King said the department usually tries to separate accused sex offenders from other inmates. “In the jail inmates’ minds, these guys are the lowest of the low,” he said. “We know that there’s a potential for violence.”

However, because of jail overcrowding, a large number of suspected child molesters were being held at the Men’s Central Jail pending transfer to Pitchess.

“In theory, they were only supposed to be in holding cells for a day or two,” King said. “It appears some of them were staying there up to a week.”

King said he believes that the deputies at the downtown jail may have allowed their personal feelings to influence their treatment of the accused sex offenders.

“A lot of times these kids [the deputies] get emotionally involved,” he said.

King added that investigators are unsure how long the beatings had been going on. “We’re doing a database run on all the child molest suspects that were housed at Men’s Central Jail over the past several months,” he said. “Then we are going to go out and interview those suspects.”

Paul Hoffman, a legal consultant to the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said the allegations dismayed him. “It’s pretty outrageous” if proved, he said. “I think the only appropriate response is to start a criminal investigation. . . . It’s common knowledge that people in prison or jail on child molestation charges are at some risk. What makes this so egregious is the alleged participation of the officers in actually perpetuating it and allowing it to happen.”

In describing the investigation, custody chief King said, “It’s pure speculation, but I think the deputies thought that they could get away with it. . . . Someone is going to talk sooner or later.”