What’s going on at Twin Towers Jail?

This week, The Times’ Robert Faturechi reported that the FBI is investigating allegations of brutality and misconduct on the part of Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies in the jails. And a report released Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California provides sworn testimony about inmate beatings from three witnesses, including a chaplain who described watching deputies repeatedly kick an inmate who “lay limp and merely absorbed their blows.” The report comes eight months after an ACLU monitor assigned to the Twin Towers jail said she saw several deputies repeatedly Taser and beat an inmate as if he were a “human punching bag.”

The allegations are piling up, yet Sheriff Lee Baca and his top aides continue to insist that everything’s under control and that the department can police itself, thank you very much. But it can’t.

Baca, unfortunately, appears more interested in whining about the federal inquiry than uncovering the truth. He has spent a lot of time, for instance, complaining that as part of its investigation, the FBI paid a deputy about $1,500 to smuggle a cellphone to an inmate at Men’s Central Jail. The deputy was unaware that the prisoner was an FBI informant.

Instead of expressing outrage that one of his deputies took a bribe, or vowing to help the FBI get to the bottom of the misconduct and brutality allegations, Baca has criticized the FBI for failing to notify his office about the cellphone sting, and has suggested that agents committed a crime that put deputies’ and inmates’ lives at risk. He has dismissed past ACLU allegations as “unsubstantiated,” although in at least two of the cases cited in the most recent report, internal investigators never contacted witnesses, the civil liberties group said.

The county jails have a long history of trouble that precedes Baca. They have been under federal court oversight for overcrowding and other problems for more than 30 years. And over the last decade, there have been inmate riots, killings by inmates and even accusations that deputies in the jails have formed gang-like cliques. Deputies, mind you. Not inmates. At least a dozen deputies were fired for misconduct last year.

The county cannot afford to ignore these problems. Beginning next week, newly convicted low-level felons who until now have been sent to state prison will be sent to county jails. Baca must bring his deputies under control immediately; the potential for violence and misconduct will only grow as the inmate population increases.

If Baca is truly interested in demonstrating the integrity of his department and protecting the reputation of his deputies, he should welcome the FBI probe, not obstruct it.

L.A. County Probation Dept. should handle new parolees

For all its troubles, the Probation Department, which oversees residents on probation as well as the county’s juvenile detention facilities, is the proper agency to handle the coming population.

Thousands of new parolees are coming to Los Angeles County as part of the state’s effort to ease prison overcrowding. To deal with them, the Board of Supervisors faces two options, both abysmal. It could assign the former state prisoners to the foundering Probation Department, which has demonstrated an inability to keep adequate records, discipline wayward employees and properly supervise troubled youths, and is under scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Justice. Or it could pick the Sheriff’s Department, which has its own history of difficulties and is currently being monitored by the federal government for its failures in county jails.

With the parolees comes state funding, and each department is eager to take on the new task and accept the new money. Past behavior suggests neither department is up to the job — but in the end it has to be one or the other. The supervisors must be tempted to wash their hands of the problem and send the parolees to Sheriff Lee Baca, who is elected and whom the supervisors ultimately can hang out to dry if his program fails. But that would be the wrong move. For all its troubles, the Probation Department, which oversees residents on probation as well as the county’s juvenile detention facilities, is the proper agency to handle the coming population.

That should not be mistaken for a vote of confidence in the Probation Department. To the contrary, that department is, and long has been, a mess.

For more than a decade, the Justice Department has been monitoring the agency as a consequence of a host of appalling conditions in the juvenile justice portion of its operation. Juvenile halls were cited for deficient medical and mental healthcare. Education of youths in county custody was found to be woefully inadequate. The department was warned about its failure to protect youths from one another — and in some cases, from Probation Department staff. The juvenile halls, which are generally reserved for youths accused of crimes who are awaiting their court hearings, were instead being used as places of punishment.

At the youth camps, where young offenders are sent after being found guilty of crimes, the Justice Department found constitutional violations. And yet those problems persist.

Meanwhile, employees have been arrested for misuse of public funds, for theft and for inappropriate conduct with probationers.

That would seem to offer an argument for another department to take on the new duties, and that’s what Baca has proposed. The sheriff says his department is prepared to take over the job in October, when the state is expected to begin releasing inmates. Under Baca’s plan, his department would receive $37.5 million in the first year. The funds would not be used for any new hires; instead, the sheriff would transfer 146 deputies and support staff out of the jails and patrol services and into the role of supervising parolees. Los Angeles Police Department staff would also be brought in, Baca’s office said.

But Baca’s department has its own litany of difficulties, and it too is under federal scrutiny. In June, the FBI confirmed it was investigating allegations that two sheriff’s deputies assigned to the Twin Towers jail beat an inmate unconscious and then attempted to cover up the incident. The Department of Justice has been monitoring the jails since 1996 over failure to provide adequate mental health services to inmates. And since 1978, a federal court has repeatedly ordered the Sheriff’s Department to improve conditions and reduce overcrowding at the jails.

Moreover, the department’s chief responsibility is to enforce the law, not to help rehabilitate those who are trying to stay out of jail, which is a big part of what parole is about. L.A. County would be the first in the state to hand off the supervision of parolees to a sheriff’s department. This duty thus not only would tax the sheriff’s resources but would involve his department in areas beyond its traditional expertise. Baca has said his plan would take from six months to a year to be fully operational. Quite frankly, the county can’t afford to wait.

The tragedy of the county’s predicament is that the arrival of new state parolees ought to be an opportunity to focus on the reentry of these ex-prisoners into society. It should fall to churches, mosques and synagogues, to nonprofit organizations, to schools, but above all to county government to ensure that those leaving institutions and reentering their neighborhoods do so in a way that maximizes their chance to become productive and law-abiding citizens.

Even the parolees expected to come to Los Angeles County — those whose crimes were nonviolent, non-sexual and relatively low-level — are more likely than the state’s population at large to be sick, addicted, mentally ill, poorly educated and unemployable. Given that California’s state prison system has disinvested in prisoner care and rehabilitation, the parolees are unlikely to come home any better prepared to lead productive lives than when they went in. Indeed, the failure of the state’s parole efforts is one of the best arguments for turning this responsibility over to local governments, which at least have a fighting chance.

Los Angeles County has done little to prepare for this opportunity, and it must now suffer the consequences of its past mismanagement. Forced to pick between two troubled agencies, it should take the one that at least encompasses the mission. The county employees best experienced and oriented toward that task are probation workers.

FBI investigates alleged beating of inmate by L.A. County deputies

The FBI is investigating allegations that two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies knocked an inmate unconscious, beat him for two minutes and then tried to cover up their conduct, authorities confirmed Monday.

The federal civil rights probe was prompted by the allegations of an American Civil Liberties Union representative who said she witnessed the assault while meeting with another inmate in the Twin Towers jail in January. Esther Lim, the ACLU’s observer in the jails, filed a court declaration stating that she was in another room when she heard a thud sound. Through a window, she said, she saw two deputies punching, kicking and Tasering an inmate.

The inmate never resisted, and his body was limp “like he was a mannequin” throughout the assault, Lim said, adding that she did not believe the deputies were aware she was there.

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller confirmed that a probe had been opened into the incident. She declined to elaborate on the investigation other than to say that sheriff’s officials have been notified and that it’s specific to the alleged January beating. Sheriff’s officials had also launched their own investigation into Lim’s allegations.

During the incident, Lim said the deputies monotonously repeated “stop resisting” and “stop fighting,” as though they “were reading from a script.”

ACLU officials say they commonly receive complaints from inmates who say deputies beat them while repeating “stop resisting” commands even when the inmates aren’t resisting. Lim said she suspects the two deputies recited the commands as a ruse to later justify their actions with the help of a jailhouse recording or other deputies who may have heard their commands.

After Lim went public with her allegations, Sheriff’s Department officials publicly asked why she hadn’t immediately reported the beating to them. The ACLU, in turn, criticized the department for what they characterized as publicly questioning a potential witness’ credibility.

Representatives from the civil liberties group also complained that James Parker, the inmate who was allegedly beaten, was charged with felony counts of battery and resisting an officer before the sheriff’s probe into Lim’s allegations was wrapped up.
Lim told The Times she was interviewed a couple of months ago by federal authorities for about three hours.

Her attorney, Michael Proctor, said Lim remains a monitor in the jails, but has received a “chilly reception” since the incident. He said she has cooperated fully with authorities.

The FBI investigation was launched after ACLU officials called for federal involvement, saying the Sheriff’s Department has been “unwilling” to investigate its own jail deputies aggressively.

“The response we always get from the Sheriff’s Department is ‘Oh, prisoners lie,’ ” said Peter J. Eliasberg, legal director with the ACLU of Southern California. “We have real doubts about the Sheriff’s Department’s ability to do an impartial investigation.”

Spokesman Steve Whitmore said Sheriff Lee Baca is open to his department being scrutinized.

“The sheriff and by extension the Sheriff’s Department has never had any problem with anybody looking at whatever they do,” Whitmore said. “We certainly believe transparency is much more than a buzz word. It’s an actuality in the Sheriff’s Department.”

An internal sheriff’s log appears to confirm the Jan. 24 incident, but offers a different narrative than Lim’s. The log states that the inmate punched a deputy and charged at him. When another deputy tried to help, the inmate punched him as well and remained combative until he was Tasered, according to the sheriff’s log.

According to the department, one of the deputies injured his hand and had swelling on his face.

Allegations of deputy brutality in county jails are common but hard to substantiate. Generally the only witnesses, aside from other deputies, are inmates whose accounts are inherently considered less credible, experts say. Critics pointed to this incident as a rare instance in which a third party happened to observe.

Eimiller said the bureau’s findings will be presented to the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice in Washington once the probe is complete, at which time it will be determined “if prosecution is warranted.”

By Robert Faturechi, Los Angeles Times

ACLU staffer said she witnessed deputies beating inmate at Twin Towers

A civilian monitor was visiting the Twin Towers jail on another matter on Jan. 24, when she saw two deputies punch and use a Taser on an inmate who lay unconscious. A department log confirms the incident but offers different details.

A civilian jail monitor said she witnessed two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies treat an inmate like “a punching bag,” unjustifiably beating him as he lay unconscious for at least two minutes, according to a court declaration filed Monday by the ACLU.

The representative for the civil liberties organization was at Twin Towers jail for an unrelated meeting with another inmate when, according to her declaration, she heard thuds from outside the room she was in. Through a window, she said, she saw two deputies punching, kicking and Tasering an inmate.

Esther Lim, the ACLU observer, said the inmate never resisted, and his body was limp “like he was a mannequin” throughout the assault. In an interview with The Times, Lim said the deputies did not realize she was watching until after the beating stopped. A declaration from another inmate supports her account.

An internal sheriff’s log also appears to confirm the Jan. 24 incident, but offers a different narrative. The log states that the inmate punched a deputy and charged at him. When another deputy tried to help, the inmate punched him as well and remained combative until he was Tasered, according to the sheriff’s log.

Lim called the deputies’ account a fabrication, saying inmate James Parker was so still while being beaten that she worried he was dead. During the incident, she said the deputies monotonously repeated “stop resisting” and “stop fighting” as though they “were reading from a script.”

Lim said the ACLU commonly receives complaints from inmates who say deputies beat them while repeating “stop resisting” commands, even when the inmates aren’t resisting. Lim said she suspects the deputies involved in this incident recited the commands as a ruse to later justify their actions with the help of a jailhouse recording or other deputies who may have heard their commands.

A sheriff’s spokesman said the matter is being investigated, though “initial findings” indicate the inmate was combative, and one of the deputies injured his hand and had swelling on his face.

Allegations of deputy brutality in county jails are common but hard to substantiate. Aside from other deputies, usually the only witnesses are inmates, whose accounts are inherently considered less credible, experts say. This incident offers an especially rare instance in which a third party was there to observe.

One of the deputies involved in the incident was identified in court records as Ryan Hirsch. The other was identified by the ACLU by his last name, Ochoa. Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore declined to confirm their names. Both, he said, declined requests from The Times for an interview. The deputies remain on active duty, Whitmore said.

Parker, 35, was charged Monday with felony counts of battery and resisting an officer in connection with the incident. According to Lim’s account, Parker was lying on his stomach, looking “unconscious” or “even dead.” Hirsch and Ochoa, she said, simultaneously punched him and kneed him. Parker, she said, never put up his hands to protect his head, which Lim took as a sign that he had lost consciousness.

The deputies Tasered Parker’s leg up to four times, she said, and his torso up to three times. A minute into the beating, Ochoa motioned to the other deputy, bringing his index finger to his lips, Lim recalled. Hirsch yelled “stop resisting” and “stop fighting” just once more after Ochoa motioned, she said.

Soon after the incident, Ochoa looked at Lim through the window and signaled for her to move away from the window, she said.

During another visit the next day, she said, she recognized Ochoa and at one point noticed him “staring at me in an aggressive manner.”

Parker received stitches to his face, pain in his ribs and a swollen cheek and eye, according to the ACLU.

“This makes me feel even more strongly that these kinds of incidents go on a lot,” said Peter J. Eliasberg, managing attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. “And every time we bring them to the Sheriff’s Department, they consistently say, ‘They’re all false, they’re all false, prisoners lie.’ ”

Whitmore said investigators will interview all the witnesses.

“It’s rare that you have a civilian eyewitness, and what we don’t understand is she never mentioned this to us,” Whitmore said. “Why didn’t she come forward? Why didn’t she talk to us?”

Eliasberg said the ACLU did not notify the Sheriff’s Department immediately because in the past officials there have been quick to deny any complaints.

A court declaration from the inmate who was meeting with Lim at the time of the incident also disputed the deputies’ telling. Lim said inmate Christopher Brown had seen the altercation develop before she did. Brown said Parker was not resisting.

“I saw him stumbling forward, towards me, falling to the ground,” Brown said in a court declaration. “He looked like he was knocked out.” After the incident, Brown said, another inmate had to mop up what appeared to be blood.

Brown said he was interviewed by deputies about the incident afterward. He said Ochoa was present at first. “As I was telling the sergeant that I saw Deputy Ochoa punching Parker, Deputy Ochoa stared at me in an aggressive manner, so I asked him ‘What?’ He aggressively said ‘What’ back at me.’ ”

Michael Gennaco, who heads the Office of Independent Review, the department’s official watchdog, said involved deputies should not be present during interviews. Whitmore said the deputy was not present and that Brown’s allegation was a “fabrication.”

After Ochoa was escorted away, Brown said, he saw the other involved deputy, Hirsch, who warned him not to get involved.

“My advice,” he said the deputy told him, “is to stay out of it. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

By Robert Faturechi, Los Angeles Times

Compton gang member suspected of strangling his Twin Towers jail cellmate

A Compton gang member already sentenced to life in prison for murder and awaiting trial in a second slaying is being investigated for allegedly strangling his Twin Towers jail cellmate.

Jamar Lavon Tucker, 28, was found Thursday morning inside a two-man cell next to the body of William Levell Hansbrough during a security check at the county jail in downtown Los Angeles, officials said.

Tucker allegedly told deputies that he had just killed his cellmate, said Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. A coroner’s autopsy determined Hansbrough’s death was homicide by strangulation.

Deputies found Hansbrough, 36, covered with a sheet inside the cell that is part of a gang module. Whitmore said sheriff’s homicide investigators expect to present a case to prosecutors in the near future. According to sheriff officials, Tucker and Hansbrough are part of the “same gang” and were listed as the “same security level” and had shared a cell for more than month before the slaying.

Hansbrough was slated to go to trial next month for felony gun possession and forgery, according to prosecutors.

Tucker was being held at the jail because he is slated to go on trial May 10 for the 2005 murder of Kevin Watts. Prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty against Tucker if he is convicted in that case, officials said.

Tucker was convicted two years ago of a murder and attempted murder along with three other men, court records show. During the trial for the April 2005 home invasion robbery and carjacking in Redlands, Tucker pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder. Tucker received a life sentence.

When Redlands police arrested Tucker, they described him as a member of the L.A. gang the 107th Street Hoover Crips who goes by the name “Baby Hoover Ray.” Tucker, along with three other men, carjacked a car restoration expert and then forced him to drive them to his Redlands home.

Once there, the men fatally shot the carjacking victim’s 28-year-old cousin and wounded his 51-year-old mother. They then stole thousands of dollars in cash, according to police. As they drove back to L.A., Tucker shot the carjacking victim, according to authorities. The man faked he was dead and was dumped in Fullerton.

– Richard Winton

Sheriff says mental health cuts burden L.A. jails

May 25, 2010

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca on Tuesday blasted cuts to mental health services in the Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget, saying they would burden the county’s already overcrowded jails.

Baca estimated that the Sheriff’s Department currently has about 2,500 inmates with mental health problems in its jails, many of them in the Twin Towers facility in downtown Los Angeles. Critics have asserted that the number of mentally ill inmates is much higher, with many landing in Men’s Central Jail, a facility less equipped for mental health care.

Cutting funding to community mental health services would push the mentally ill out of clinics, onto the streets and, for many, eventually into the jails, Baca said.

“Los Angeles County jails are already the largest mental health provider in the country,” Baca said. “The timing of these cuts could not come at a worse time.”

– Robert Faturechi

The Game Checks into Jail

Rapper to serve 60 days.

By Gil Kaufman

The Game began his 60-day jail sentence on Sunday night at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles, a label representative for the rapper confirmed Monday (March 3). The rapper (born Jayceon Taylor) pleaded no contest last month to a felony charge of possession of a firearm in a school zone.

The sentence stems from an altercation Game allegedly got into last February during a pick-up basketball game at the Rita Walters Educational Learning Complex in South L.A., with prosecutors alleging that Taylor punched an opposing player and then pulled a gun from his car and threatened to shoot the man. He was arrested on the charge in May of 2007 and, following the plea deal cut last month, was sentenced to 60 days in jail, 150 hours of community service and three years’ probation.

He had faced three counts of making criminal threats and possessing a firearm in a school zone, but two of the charges were dropped in the plea deal. According to reports, the rapper waited until just moments before midnight on March 3 — the deadline for him to check in to jail — to report to the facility.

In a recent interview with Monsta magazine, Game apparently proclaimed his innocence.

“The crazy part about this is that I’ve had guns before in my life,” Game told the mag. “But this time, I didn’t have a gun. And because one person said I had a gun and coaxed his homies into saying that I had a gun, I’m in a predicament where I’m asking, ‘Do I want to spend another million dollars to fight this trial, so who knows what jury’s gonna come in and say I’m guilty? Or do I want to save my money, go sit down for four months and accept this felony they’re trying to give me for no reason.’ ”

Phil Spector starts his 18-year jail sentence

On his arrival at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles on Monday, Phil Spector was immediately subjected to a strip search before being issued with his prison clothes and being shown to a special section of the jail where the most high-profile prisoners are locked up. Previous occupants of the prison have included Paris Hilton in 2007 and Robert Downey Junior in 1998.

A mere 15-minute drive from his Alhambra suburb 30-bedroom mansion where he shot Clarkson in the mouth after a party, Phil Spector’s new home is the world’s biggest prison, housing 4,000 inmates in its 1.5m square feet. On Wednesday, the eccentric millionaire music producer woke up to face the second day of what is likely to be an 18-year sentence for the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson.

The prison is closed for visits from Wednesdays to Fridays, so Spector’s girlfriend, the 28-year-old Playboy model Rachelle Short, will have to wait until Saturday before reacquainting herself with her beau. She can, however, pick up the wig and suit he wore to court from the Inmate Reception Center Monday to Friday: from now on, Spector will wear only high-visibility jumpsuits.

Spector, prison booking number 1873015, will remain at Twin Towers until May 29 when he will learn exactly how long his sentence will be and which of California’s prisons he is likely to be transferred to.

Former inmates of the prison, a den of violent rapists, mentally ill prisoners and hardened gangsters, have suggested that the diminutive Spector will need to keep his wits about him if he is to stay unharmed. “Better be strong,” a released inmate named ‘Steve’ told ABC News. “Better know how to fight… [being small] is a disadvantage if they got to fight, there’s a riot, they’re gonna get messed up.”

Men’s Central Jail on Lockdown to Prevent Racial Brawl

The Men’s Central Jail has been on lockdown since Friday evening after the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department learned that inmates were plotting violence.

Sheriff’s officials said they placed the downtown jail — known for holding the most dangerous inmates — on lockdown after learning that some prisoners were planning racial violence.

Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said the facility was locked down to visitors and inmate movement until this morning and that now those restrictions were being eased.

Violence between black and Latino inmates has been a problem at the jail.

Since it opened just east of downtown Los Angeles 44 years ago, Men’s Central Jail has been the scene of many of the jail system’s most disturbing incidents, including nine inmate homicides between 2000 and 2007. In 2004, an inmate roamed the jail unsupervised for hours before tracking down and killing an inmate who had testified against him.

Months after that killing, Merrick Bobb, the county’s special counsel, wrote a report that described the jail as “nightmarish to manage” and suggested the department close it.

– Richard Winton