US charges LA County deputies with beating handcuffed inmate

Source: Los Angeles Times

US charges LA County deputies with beating handcuffed inmate
By JACK LEONARD, ROBERT FATURECHI AND RICHARD WINTON
Los Angeles Times
February 9, 2014

LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES-Federal prosecutors announced charges Friday against two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies accused of assaulting a handcuffed inmate in a case that broadens the FBI's ongoing inquiry and raises new questions about how the Sheriff's Department has investigated deputy misconduct in the nation's largest jail system.

Sheriff's officials previously rejected allegations that the deputies used excessive force despite a jail chaplain coming forward to say that he witnessed the 2009 incident and believed the deputies beat a helpless inmate. The sheriff's watchdog reviewed the case but signed off on the department's findings.

A second inquiry by a special task force launched in 2011 to review accusations of brutality in the jails submitted its investigation to the district attorney's office nearly a year after the legal deadline for filing criminal charges in state court, according to a district attorney's memo obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The deputies were not disciplined by the department in connection with the incident, a sheriff's spokesman said.

Including the new charges, 21 current and former sheriff's officials have been accused of crimes in the FBI's three-year investigation into brutality and other misconduct in the department.




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