The same year Eric Garner died while being
subdued by the New York City Police, protesting, “I can’t breathe,” a
man died as he was restrained in Harris County Jail calling out the
exact same words.
Both incidents set off wrongful-death cases
filed on behalf of the victims’ families. But while New York City
reached a settlement with Garner’s family for $5.9 million, the case of
38-year-old Kenneth Christopher Lucas is still wending its way through
the court system four years after his death. Late last week, a judge
decided Lucas’ family will get its wrongful-death case heard during a
trial.
“The court found that the county itself will
have to stand trial for its unconstitutional and dangerous training,”
said attorney Jeff Edwards, who is representing the family. “What’s
important about that is the county can’t pretend that this was an
isolated act.”
U.S. District Court Judge Sim Lake stated in a
comprehensive opinion filed Friday that the Lucas family provided
sufficient evidence to move to trial.
Lucas had been at the Harris County Jail for
less than a week on a child custody charge when several sheriff's
deputies entered his cell on Feb. 17, 2014, after he refused to hand
over a piece of metal he had sharpened after breaking a smoke detector.
Lucas was handcuffed and placed face-down on a gurney while an officer
sat on his back, restraining him.
He could be heard in a 30-minute video of the
ordeal warning deputies that he was going to pass out and pleading to
be released. Lucas' death was caused by "sudden cardiac death due to
hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease during physical
restraint," according to a ruling by the Harris County medical examiner.
The wrongful death lawsuit seeks damages
under federal civil rights laws and under the Americans with
Disabilities Act. The complaint names Harris County and seven of the
officers involved in the incident and alleges the officers used
excessive force against Lucas and failed to take into account his
"serious medical conditions."
However, Lake's memorandum stated that there
was not enough evidence to show Lucas was a qualified individual with a
disability, or that the county discriminated against him because of his
disability.
In addition to making allegations that officers used excessive force, the complaint alleges the county is also to blame.
“What happened was the county trained these officers to act in an unconstitutional way,” Edwards said.
He called such training “unconscionable” in
light of a 2009 memorandum from the Department of Justice outlining the
findings of an investigation into the Harris County Jail. In the
memorandum, the Department of Justice expressed “serious concerns” about
the use of force at the jail.
“Indeed, we found a significant number of incidents where staff used inappropriate force techniques,” the memorandum stated.
“They said they would stop it,” Edwards said. “And they went on doing the same thing.”
In the opinion filed on Friday, Lake wrote
that plaintiffs have raised genuine issues that the violation of Lucas'
constitutional rights may have resulted from county policy.
“Plaintiffs cite the deposition testimony of
Sheriff (Adrian) Garcia that the DCCT members followed their training
and carried it out as instructed,” Lake wrote, “not just by placing
Lucas face down on the gurney in a basic hogtie position, but also by
ignoring Lucas's pleas for help until he was ‘entirely incapacitated,’
and that he knew restraining detainees in a basic hogtie position was
dangerous due to the risk of positional asphyxia, which could result in
death.”
In 2015, the Harris County grand jury
declined to criminally indict the five deputies, a supervisor, a
lieutenant and a videographer involved in the incident. An internal
investigation by the sheriff's office also cleared employees of any
wrongdoing.
Then-sheriff Garcia said Lucas' death
prompted changes in jail procedures, including that medical staff is now
stationed outside a cell when an inmate is being forcefully removed.
"When life is lost, I think there's a whole
lot of things that go wrong," Garcia said at a news conference at the
time. "We don't get to pick the inmates that come to us and the medical
condition they're in."
Comments:
Ok he had metal that had been sharpened where I am from that's called a shank its also a felony for an inmate to have one but here we go again it's the deputy s fault it's the jails fault it's the policy fault i don't want to see anyone die it's a sad thing for the family and every one involved but what do you expect from these officers they make the best decision they can handling mean people armed with shanks the officers and the people's employed by the sheriff's office have serious work to do do you really think a sheriff's office can exist by going to a cell and saying please Mr inmate will you hand over the shank it does not work that way if you don't believe that try doing the job before you judge the officers sheriff or any one involved you might have a different out look on things if you stand in their boots most of the time the judge has never worked in a jail or never even worked the street in a uniform people wake up support your law enforcement they do a hard job to protect you remember they are all that's between your family and the people in the jails and prisons God Bless
