Sheriff to Conduct Investigation of Disturbance at Jail

Sheriff’s Department officials announced Thursday that they will launch a detailed inquiry into a November melee at the Orange County Jail that prompted a $5-million brutality claim brought by prisoners.

The disturbance, which involved 48 inmates and 30 deputies, is considered one of the most serious incidents at the jail in several years and comes at a time of unprecedented overcrowding.

The claim, filed Thursday by a Newport Beach attorney on behalf of 23 inmates, alleges that deputies in riot gear beat and pepper-sprayed inmates who were protesting the way officials had earlier searched their cells.

But Assistant Sheriff Rocky Hewitt strongly denied that deputies did anything wrong, saying that they used only enough force to quell a near-riot.

“We just don’t arbitrarily try to have confrontations with inmates,” Hewitt said. “I’m real surprised by [the claim] and I’m real upset. Our officers do a great job every day in a stressful environment.”

Sheriff’s Department investigators conducted interviews and reviewed videotape of the melee last year before concluding that deputies acted properly. But Hewitt said his department will now fully examine each allegation made in the claim.

The violence broke out on the afternoon of Nov. 27, when inmates from module B, sector 9 of the Central Men’s Jail in Santa Ana returned from recreation.

The inmates’ version of events contrasts sharply with that of Sheriff’s Department officials.

The claim alleges that the prisoners discovered that deputies had searched the sector’s cells, destroying personal pictures and papers and taking away their toilet paper. The Sheriff’s Department denies this happened.

Upset, inmates covered their cell doors with blankets and sheets and began yelling as a “mild protest,” the claim states.

Deputies burst into the sector in riot gear and spraying some sort of gas into the cells, according to the claim. Inmates were kicked and beaten, then handcuffed, the claim alleges.

Some inmates suffered cracked ribs and broken noses, according to attorney Jonathan Slipp, who filed the claim and wrote a letter to Sheriff Mike Carona complaining about the incident.

But sheriff’s officials said a videotape of the incident tells a very different story.

Hewitt steadfastly denied that deputies destroyed any personal property belonging to inmates during the search. Instead, he said, deputies found knives and other contraband.

During the protest, Hewitt added, inmates dumped excrement on the floor of their cells for deputies to step into. An “extraction team” of about 30 deputies was needed to quell the disturbance, he said.

Hewitt said officers used only enough force to control unruly inmates. He acknowledged that eight prisoners were later whisked to Western Medical Center-Anaheim for treatment but said that none suffered broken bones. Four officers also required medical attention, he said, the most severely injured suffering a sprained shoulder.

“I’m saddened that there was a confrontation,” Hewitt said, “and I’m equally saddened that my officers have been falsely accused.”

The county’s jail system is one of the most overcrowded in the nation. It was built to handle 3,880 inmates but now houses about 5,300 at any given time.

Despite the overcrowding, the jail system has been free of major violence. The last significant problems occurred in 1994, when a series of 10 racially motivated confrontations between black and Latino inmates occurred.

Sheriff Mike Carona is searching for a site in South County to locate a new jail. The Board of Supervisors, meanwhile, is moving forward with plans to greatly expand the James A. Musick Branch Jail in Irvine.

The Musick expansion is strongly opposed by nearby residents and helped inspire an initiative on the 2000 ballot that would require voter approval for new jail facilities and other controversial projects such as airports and landfills.