{"id":1904,"date":"2011-09-29T15:30:05","date_gmt":"2011-09-29T22:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.57.196.122\/~gdatwofo\/theavtimes\/?p=1904"},"modified":"2011-10-24T13:31:56","modified_gmt":"2011-10-24T20:31:56","slug":"aclu-%e2%80%98it-is-time-for-sheriff-baca-to-step-down%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/2011\/09\/29\/aclu-%e2%80%98it-is-time-for-sheriff-baca-to-step-down%e2%80%99\/","title":{"rendered":"ACLU: \u2018It is time for Sheriff Baca to step down\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sheriff<\/a>
Sheriff Lee Baca<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LOS ANGELES – The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California is calling for the resignation of Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, following the release of its annual Jails Report.<\/p>\n

The report is titled \u201cCruel and Usual Punishment: How a Savage Gang of Deputies Controls LA County Jails.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The 32-page report claims gangs comprised of deputies fuel violence against inmates, and claims Baca has covered up and ignored claims of the brutality.<\/p>\n

In a new release issued Wednesday, the ACLU said it had received several thousand complaints from prisoners in the L.A. County Jail system in the past year, hundreds of them about deputy-on-inmate abuse.<\/p>\n

The ACLU said the complaints revealed that groups of deputies often attacked non-resisting inmates; and in other cases, deputies enlisted other inmates to carry out their orders of abuse.<\/p>\n

In one instance, inmates sexually assaulted another inmate with a broomstick, while on another occasion others raped an inmate while holding his head in a flushing toilet; all with the apparent cooperation of the Los Angeles Sheriff\u2019s Department employees, according to the ACLU.<\/p>\n

\"ACLUAccording to the report, former inmate Gordon Grbavac received a severe beating from deputies that sent him to the jail\u2019s clinic. \u201cOne deputy grabbed me on my left side and the other deputy grabbed me on my right side, as if I was a battering ram,\u201d he said. “They repeatedly slammed my head and cheek into the window partition that separates the attorneys from the inmates.\u201d After the beating, Grbavac saw his own blood splattered on the window partition and even in the next cubicle, the ACLU said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeputy-on-inmate abuse has reached levels we\u2019ve never seen before. Now we have chaplains and other civilians coming forward who have seen the brutality themselves, and their declarations vindicate the claims of prisoners,\u201d said Peter Eliasberg, ACLU\/SC legal director. \u201cContrary to what the Sheriff and his spokesperson contend, hundreds of inmates are telling the truth about deputy abuse. This report\u00a0 demonstrates a pattern of unprovoked, excessive force and abuse against inmates, many of whom are not resisting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ACLU says Thomas Parker, a former FBI agent and assistant special agent in charge of the Bureau\u2019s Los Angeles office, reviewed declarations submitted by inmates, civilians and chaplains, as well as conducted in-person interviews.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the beatings that routinely occur in the jails are far more severe than the beating of Rodney King,\u201d said Parker. \u201cThe violence is not the work of a few rogue deputies, but systemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGang-like groups of deputies have been operating in the Los Angeles Sheriff\u2019s Department at least since the 1980s, and perhaps since the early 1970s, and these deputy gangs continue to operate today seemingly with impunity, right under the eyes of all levels of the current management of the LASD,\u201d Parker continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo jail in the nation matches the level of pervasive, savage, long-standing and notorious deputy-on-inmate violence of the kind we see in L.A. County Jails,\u201d said Margaret Winter, associate director of the ACLU National Prison Project in Washington, D.C. \u201cBut what is most stunning of all is the stubborn refusal of Sheriff Baca, the man in charge, to acknowledge there\u2019s even a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ACLU claims Los Angeles County Jails have now become one of the most dangerous jails or prison systems in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe [Baca] is responsible for the safety of these inmates and has failed them,\u201d said Eliasberg.\u00a0\u201cIt is time for Sheriff Baca to step down.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a news conference Wednesday, Baca reportedly said the ACLU report does not tell the whole story at the County Jail. Baca told the Los Angeles Times he prides himself on operating an open and transparent jail system.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Times reports the FBI has initiated an investigation into the reports.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is the focus of another federal investigation, this one in the Antelope Valley. Last month, the U.S. Justice Department launched an investigation into alleged discriminatory policing by the LA County Sheriff\u2019s Departments in Palmdale and Lancaster.<\/p>\n

View the ACLU Jails Report 2011 here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Below is a video created by the ACLU regarding alleged abuse in the LA County Jails.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES – The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California is calling for the resignation of Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, following the release of its annual Jails Report. The report is titled \u201cCruel and Usual Punishment: How a Savage Gang of Deputies Controls LA County Jails.\u201d The 32-page report claims gangs comprised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}