Shocking new videos have laid bare the violence inside L.A. County jails, with guards seen kneeling on one inmate’s neck.
Deputies have been exposed as using excessive force and beating inmates in the newly released videos that a California Judge ordered to be released on Thursday.
The videos, covering a time frame from October 2019 to July 2022, were released as part of a lawsuit brought by Alex Rosas and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The suit has been brought against the Sheriff’s Department over their treatment of inmates, with the LA Times and WitnessLA requesting the release of the videos.
In one video, an inmate is shown being pinned to the ground and swarmed by deputies who have applied what is known as the WRAP.
Another is shown being grabbed by two deputies who pin him to the ground, while one of them kneels on the inmate’s neck.
The videos, covering a time frame from October 2019 to July 2022, were released as part of a lawsuit brought by Alex Rosas and the American Civil Liberties Union
A County of Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department bus drives past Tower One of the Men’s Central Jail as seen from Vignes Street in downtown Los Angeles
The WRAP is a form of restraint device, that is used when prisoners are not complying and is somewhat similar to a straitjacket.
Other clips show inmates receiving punches to the heads and another where two officers grab one inmate leaving their cell and bash his head against a wall.
Throughout the whole interaction, the inmate has his hands behind his back.
Before turning over the footage, the county blurred the identities of staff and inmates, with all but one of them being silent.
It is also impossible to know what came before or after the incidents shown.
Lawyers for the county fought to keep the footage confidential, but after a hearing earlier this year, U.S. District Court Judge Dean Pregerson ordered their release.
Peter Eliasberg, chief counsel for the ACLU of Southern California, told the LA Times the videos show ‘unnecessary force’ being used.
Eliasberg told the outlet that the ‘most brutal’ of the clips, was the one which shows two deputies smashing an inmates head against a wall.
He said the video shows an ‘absolutely unnecessary’ use of force, for which ‘there’s clearly no justification’.
Eliasberg added: ‘The inmate does not do anything to them. And frankly, even if he had, it’s almost impossible to justify that kind of force.”’
One inmate, who has his hands heind, is seen here being grabbed by two deputies after leaving his cell
The two deputies smash his head into the wall outside his cell, as another deputy rushes in to help – despite the inmate not provoking the men in the clip
According to Eliasberg, the officer who put his knee on the neck of one inmate was not disciplined for his behavior.
Aside from footage of the punching and kneeling incidents, one of the videos shows a person bleeding on the ground and moaning and deputies employing the WRAP device to subdue him.
ACLU attorneys raised concerns about the fact that deputies covered the man’s face in a spit mask, which is used to prevent people from spitting, while he was bleeding.
The LA Times reported that the inmate was found to have sustained an orbital bone fracture after a medical exam.
In a statement on their website, the Sheriff’s Department said: ‘The incidents depicted in these six videos do not reflect the measures now in place to hold deputies accountable when they violate the Department’s stringent use of force policies.
‘Every one of the uses of force incidents depicted in these videos took place during a prior sheriff’s administration.’
Officers managed to deploy The Wrap restraint on this inmate, who is loaded into a cart and wheeled off
One of the videos shows a person bleeding on the ground and moaning and deputies employing the WRAP device to subdue him
ACLU attorneys raised concerns about the fact that deputies covered the man’s face in a spit mask
The statement added that with the policy changes, force incidents dropped 17% in 2022 and dropped another 20% so far this year.
The ACLU says it sometimes takes years to get videos released, so they don’t know if those numbers are accurate.
According to the Vera Institute of Justice, the state of California is one of the ‘epicenters’ of mass incarceration in the country.
The institute reports that every year, agencies make almost 800,000 arrests and more than 600,000 bookings into county jails.
According to data from the institute, for Los Angeles County specifically, black people are arrested at a disproportionately higher rate than any other ethnicity.
The arrest rate for black people in the county is 3.4 times higher than that of white people.