October 22, 2010 in City

Jail inmate claims he was tortured

Video fails to show abuse alleged in lawsuit

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A Spokane County Jail inmate claims in a federal lawsuit that he was beaten without warning by a cell extraction team and later tortured with blows to his genitals.

One problem: As Nicolas Garcia’s recent lawsuit notes, the Sept. 21, 2009, incident was filmed by a Discovery Channel television crew.

The video, which aired in a February episode of the “Behind Bars” show, belies much of what Garcia alleges.

“It would be almost laughable if it weren’t such serious stuff that he’s saying,” said jail Lt. Aaron Anderton.

Garcia, a Los Angeles resident, was being held on federal charges.

Garcia’s attorney, Jeffry Finer, should be held accountable for failing to review the television footage before filing the lawsuit, Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said Thursday afternoon. Finer was not immediately available for comment.

The lawsuit contends that a specially trained “critical response team” entered Garcia’s cell without giving him an opportunity to cooperate with a search for weapons and other contraband.

The lawsuit says Garcia was asleep when the officers entered his cell. They allegedly failed to ensure that Garcia heard commands to come to the cell door and extend his hands through the food slot so he could be handcuffed.

But the video, which Knezovich played for The Spokesman-Review, clearly shows Garcia standing near a window in the door when an officer gave loud instructions.

“Come to the door and cuff up,” the officer ordered. “Squat down, put your back to the door, put your hands out the food slot.”

When Garcia failed to obey, the instructions were repeated: “Do as you’re told. Put your back to the door, put your hands out the food slot.”

Garcia attempted to crawl under his desk and bed when at least four officers rushed into the cell and piled onto him.

The video shows a scuffle in which Garcia may well have been injured.

However, there is no evidence that officers threw Garcia to the floor and battered his head against the concrete, as he alleges.

Nor does the video show that officers “proceeded to strike and beat him with fists, knees, elbows and such equipment as they had at hand (clubs, flashlights, etc.),” as alleged.

The television program shows Garcia being led to a shower room for a strip search but doesn’t show what happened.

Rather, the program goes on to show the extraction team helping an inmate who poisoned himself with seeds that contained cyanide.

It also shows a September 2008 incident in which extraction team member Dan Leonetti’s neck was broken in a violent struggle with murder suspect Cole K. Strandberg.

Knezovich agreed with Garcia that the film crew was nearby when Garcia was searched. Knezovich said he planned to check for unused footage.

Garcia alleges that he was “forced to shower in front of five ninja-style commandos” – extraction team members wear black face masks under their helmets – while an officer aimed a pistol at him.

He claims he was struck twice in the genitals with a police baton.

Knezovich questioned why anyone should believe Garcia’s account of the search in view of his inaccurate version of what happened in his cell.

10 comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  opiemuyo on October 22 at 7:41 a.m.

  Counter sue him and make him repay the taxpayers for his incarceration and all court costs, for his entire adult life.

• 

  Sadbuttrue on October 22 at 8:10 a.m.

  “Knezovich said he planned to check for unused footage.”

  While he is at it, he should also check for footage that has been willfully destroyed. He should also check for footage that has been altered. And then, he should check and interview all of the officers involved and find out which ones are lying about the incident, particularly the ones who probably turned off the videotape while the beating took place. Once he has checked all of these things, he can then prepare a decent defense of lies, perjury, evasion and so on that would befit the local police. Once he has carefully prepared himself like I have advised, there should be no need of any of his vicious thugs facing Federal Criminal charges.

  You have to understand, cops buy their video cameras from a special top-secret factory that produces extremely expensive gold-plated machines that “malfunction” an incredibly high-percentage of the time, especially when they are viciously beating a helpless suspect, accepting bribes, or suggesting to a female motorist that the ticket can be made to “go away” with behavior that is unmentionable in a family newspaper. In fact, the government should sponsor an inquiry on these trouble-prone “malfunctioning” video cameras, since apparently they are far less reliable than even the cheapest, Dollar Store, made-in-Sri-Lanka video cameras.

  Additionally, the average unskilled civilian, without any training whatsoever, can reliably use those cheap cameras and shoddy cellphone cameras about 100 percent of the time. In fact, a civilian, using a $30 cellphone held out the window of a car with one hand while driving by a savage and unprovoked police beating at 75 mph can usually leave the scene with crisp and vividly-detailed footage!

  By contrast, those expensive top-secret cop videos, securely fastened to the dash of an immobile police car, operated by highly-trained and skilled cops making $100,000 a year with benefits sadly fail and “malfunction” a majority of the time.

• 

  lewis8457 on October 22 at 8:54 a.m.

  Ozzie with your department track record I would believe the tapes were erased. We all learned what our local cops do with evidence related videos, or has Ozzie forgot the Otto Zehm video?

  And this is where their dishonestly has led them, if they have lied a dozen times what keeps them from lying now.

  Finer doesn’t have to believe a video, why should he the county prosecutor, police chief, and Mayor refused to believe the Otto video so why should the lawyer?

• 

  BitofBacon on October 22 at 9:02 a.m.

  Poor little Sad, weren’t you smart enough to get one of those $100,000 a year jobs, with all your education? Did you see the part that it was filmed by a Discovery Channel crew? Did ya?
  Oh, that’s right, it’s all a conspiracy between law enforcement and mainstream media. It must be fun, living in the make believe police state you reside in.

  Lewis-the Otto video? Inconclusive at best but as Paul Simon once sort of said “A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest”

  You guys have a great day, I know I will now that I have had my laugh for the day!-Louis

• 

  liarsinnews on October 22 at 9:26 a.m.

  Reminds me of the pictures taken at the Indian Trail fire station where a firefighter had a sexual encounter with a 16 year old girl and the Detectives erased the film in the camera. Charges were not filed against the fireman and subsequently he was arrested in California for the same crime. The other firefighters on duty were never interrogated as if they see no evil hear no evil. Yeah, you bet, who was taking the pictures?

• 

  Sadbuttrue on October 22 at 11:10 a.m.

  “Poor little Sad, weren’t you smart enough to get one of those $100,000 a year jobs, with all your education? ”

  It isn’t that I wasn’t smart enough, it’s that I couldn’t get the hang of lying under oath, destroying and planting evidence, shooting at pregnant women and preachers for no reason, stealing drugs and then selling them on the street, and on top of all of that, figuring out to hide my part-time job as a Dildo salesman from my superiors.

  Anyone that can pull off all of the above, I concede, is probably that rare individual that is worth $100,000 a year.

• 

  Sadbuttrue on October 22 at 11:15 a.m.

  “Did you see the part that it was filmed by a Discovery Channel crew? Did ya?”

  Ozzie is probably lying about all of the videos of this incident. It is an excellent cover story to argue that it was only filmed by the Discovery Channel. That way, they can also easily destroy the videotapes of the incident itself, and lie without video contradiction about the beating in Court.

• 

  D Statler on October 23 at 9:17 p.m.

  It is not uncommon for the goon squad to shake the cell blocks down. I filed a complaint two years ago when the swat team was on a training mission. They rushed a sleeping cell block on a Sunday morning. Inmates were dragged out and faces smashed into the concrete.One BLACK inmate was suspended over a handrail until he urinated himself. I did receive a response from a jail sargent that procedural errors were made and he assured me it wouldn’t happen again. I would be happy to share this information with Garcia’s attourney. It more than proves there is a pattern of abuse in the Spokane County Jail. I look forward to seeing more on this issue.Something needs to be done to protect the inmates.It wouldn’t hurt so bad if we knew all the goon squad victims were guilty of a serious crime.Unfortunately, there are alot of innocent people housed at Spokane County.The whole innocent until proven guilty doesn’t do much when dumped into Spokane County waiting for a sluggish legal justice system.Then getting beat up by a goon squad while corrupt prosecutors are looking for lying snitches to help them get wrongful convictions.
  I will be contacting Jefry Finer Monday morning!

• 

  D Statler on October 23 at 9:19 p.m.

  I urge any other victims of these masked goon squads to contact Mr. Finers office as well. Thank You

• 

  yellowcat on October 27 at 9:40 a.m.

  Watch this video from KXLY. Titled “Bend Over at the Waist”. Made for TV at the expense of those incarcerated.

  http://www.kxly.com/news/23450290/detail.html