Raw Story: Video shows Ghraib-like torture by sheriffs lead to man's death

Video shows Ghraib-like torture by sheriffs lead to man's death, say groups, family
Jennifer Van Bergen
Published: Tuesday July 25, 2006

On Feb. 6, 2006, Jessie Lee Williams, Jr., a 40-year-old black man in a Southern Mississippi jail, was allegedly hooded and hog-tied by police, beaten about the head and testicles and ultimately died from blunt injuries to the head.

The coroner determined the death was a homicide. The local sheriff indicated law enforcement agencies were investigating and that the individual targeted by the investigation is “no longer employed by the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department.”

Despite the fact that the beating was videotaped, no arrests have been made.

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A recent Amnesty International report covered by RAW STORY revealed that nearly 200 African-American men in a Chicago prison have alleged torture between 1971 and 1991. The report concluded there are troubling similarities between detainee abuse allegations in US military prisons around the world and US prisons at home.

Williams’ treatment, like that of many of those in the Chicago cases, is similar to reports of abuses at Abu Ghraib, the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other US detention facilities in the Middle East. The nurse’s notes in Williams’ case states that Williams was placed in a restraint chair, hooded, sprayed with pepper spray, and had blood coming from both ears. He was told by the restraining officer that the officer would kill him, after which the man choked him until he couldn’t breathe.

Please read the entire report @ http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Videotaped_death_of_US_inmate_at_0725.html

“Everything you have read about them using in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo is used in American prisons,” Johnson avers. “ That is where most of the torturers gain their experience.”

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Videotaped_death_of_US_inmate_at_0725.html