Inmate Loses Lawsuit Over Treatment By Jailers He Told Of Restraints, Being Hosed Off; Staff Said He Smeared, Threw Feces

A federal jury decided Monday that an inmate’s civil rights were not violated when jail staff strapped him to a restraining board, showered him with a hose and left him naked, chained to a cell grate.

Steven G. Brown, a 38-year-old eight-time convicted armed robber, filed a suit against the Kootenai County Jail.

During a weeklong trial he acted as his own attorney, detailing the alleged abuse.

Jail staff told jurors a starkly different tale. They described how Brown smeared feces all over his jail cell and himself, how he plugged the toilets until they overflowed, how he threw both urine and feces on an officer and how he threatened to kill jailers.

After just two hours of deliberation Monday, the jury sided with the jail staff.

“I am really thankful,” said Lt. Jeraldine Riggs, one of the officials who regularly dealt with Brown during his stay at the jail. “It’s very hard to have your work ethic and your morality attacked in that manner when you’re really striving to be professional. I still think we handled it well.”

Brown spent eight months at the jail starting in 1991 after he was arrested for robbing two Kootenai County businesses. He now is serving 10 years to life for those crimes.

During the trial, Brown testified that the county jail staff treated him cruelly.

“I admit I was acting out and being a problem,” Brown said. But “they went way beyond what they should have done. They were sadistic.”

He said they kept him restrained in a chair for 16 hours a day. Other times they strapped him to a restraining board.

During the evening he would be kept chained to a grate in the floor of a cell. Brown said that the way he was chained forced him to urinate and defecate on himself.

He also testified that he was forced to wear the same filthy jail jumpsuit and was forced to drink dirty water.

Jail officials testified that they treated Brown as well as he would allow them to. They do not deny restraining Brown in a chair and on a board.

“I still feel it was the only alternative we had. We had tried everything else,” Riggs said, explaining that Brown was the worst inmate they have ever had.

Jail officials say Brown rubbed feces on his body and in his own wounds. He bit himself until he bled and shredded his clothing.

Brown attacked the deputies and even used his own excrement as a weapon, tossing a cup full of it on a jailer.

“Brown stated to me that I would probably get herpes because it was in his body fluids,” the deputy said in his report.

During his closing argument Brown insisted, “I knew he couldn’t get catch herpes that way, I was just upset.”

Riggs said the jail staff never has had to use the restraint board on another inmate.

Brown has vowed to appeal the jury’s decision, citing a lack of adequate legal counsel. Brown had wanted to have one of his fellow prison mates who also is a law clerk represent him. The court denied that request before the trial.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo