It all started when Sergeant Eric Allen found posters on the walls of inmate Susie Chavez’s jail cell inside Metropolitan Detention Center in Bernalillo County, New Mexico.
A disturbing video released Wednesday shows Allen, who is in charge of training other jailers on use-of-force, instructing another guard to put Chavez in a wrist-lock because she wouldn’t be quiet.
The video also shows the guards tasering her for asking for one of their names. And then macing her for crying from being tasered.
The damning new video that took place on September 19, 2015 captures jailers obeying every order as their superior threatens, mocks and intimidates the female inmate.
When Chavez, sobbing throughout the ordeal, alleged to jailers they were using excessive force, Sgt. Eric Allen replies, “Now you’re getting into stuff where we’re going to hurt you over. You need to be quiet.”
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It begins with footage of Sgt. Allen, who has been suspended from work-duty since January, along with a male and a female jailer, at Chavez’s cell demanding she, “stand up!”(function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:8606150711183207,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-7736-8965"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.lockerdome.com/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");
The video, obtained by ABQJournal through a FOIA request, shows a female jailer pull Chavez, the tiny female inmate, up from the ground by her hair.
“What’s your name?” Chavez demanded.
It only takes a second for another male officer standing nearby to pull out a stun gun, tasering Chavez, apparently for asking for the female jailer’s name.
As Chavez falls to the ground from being tasered, Sgt. Allen says coldly, “stop resisting.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Yes . . . you were,” added allen, slightly joyed.
“Stay right there. Don’t move,” Allen told Chavez, hovering over her.
Chavez begins crying, and sobbing out in pain, apparently from being tasered by the male jailer after asking for the female jailer’s name.
“I need you to be quiet. Quiet!” yells Allen. “I need you to stay there until we’re done.
Chavez continues to call out in pain, seemingly hoping for one of the other officers to stand up for her.
But that never happens.
Sgt. Allen then instructs, “Put her in a wrist lock, and twist her wrist until she shuts up and stops crying.”
Allen then walks inside of a room, although the video does not show him since it’s recorded from the perspective of his body cam.
Chavez begins asking the female officer her name, which she never responds to.
Obeying every command, the male jailer and the female jailer hold Chavez down and administer a wrist-lock.
“Ah, fuck!” Chavez screams out.
“Be quiet,” the female jailer attempts to hush the woman.
“You’re going to break my fucking wrist!” Chavez shouts. “That fucking hurts!”
“Be quiet! Be quiet! Be quiet!”
Video then shows the female jailer holding Chavez in a wrist lock saying, “lift your head up.”
“That fucking hurts!”
Chavez Screams out in pain, “you’re going to break my fucking wrist, bitch!”
Sgt. Allen then tells Chavez to stop crying, so she can be taken to medical.
As she’s being taken down the jail’s corridor, Chavez continues crying, protesting the officers who assaulted her.
“Stop. Stop. Stop,” Allen repeats, attempting to quell the grieving mother’s crying.
“You’re going to get maced,” he humors himself. “You’re doing it now.”
“If you don’t stop crying, I’m going to have to mace you.”
“I’m gonna mace her here in a second. Last warning.”
Chavez then pauses in the hallway with her head on the hand railing, and begins crying in grief.
“We need you to be quiet,” the female jailer tells the grieving woman.
“She won’t shut up. You won’t shut up, like a…”
“We’re not trying to hurt you,” the female jailer assured Chavez. “We’re just here to escort you to medical.”
“Yeah, you are, you’re using excessive force.”
“Now you’re getting into stuff where we’re going to hurt you over. You need to be quiet.”
A few seconds go by before the condescending jailer quips again.
“Just like you are right now.”
Chavez then bangs her head on the floor at which point she is maced.
After she begins drooling, reacting to the mace, a mask is placed over her head to prevent her from spitting.
Whistling, Sgt. Allen brings Chavez into medical where she begins crying to medical staff, what appears to be a jailhouse counselor and EMS personnel.
Concerned, after Chavez’s continuous sobbing, at one point, an EMS worker walks up to Allen and begins questioning him about what happened.
After her visit with medical, concerned jail personnel escorted Chavez back to her cell.
Bernalillio County fired Allen 2008 allegations of excessive use-of-force surfaced. Allen was accused of slugging an inmate twice in the head. The union argued the inmate had punched him first.
In 2009, an independent arbitrator ordered the county to reinstate Allen, stating that the county’s use-of-force policy was “too confusing” and found “gross discrepancies” in training.
The arbitrator’s argued Allen’s reaction to the inmate’s punch was reasonable, and in-line with how he was trained.
Sgt. Allen was reinstated in 2009.
He is now under investigation for events that occurred in the video, but Lt. Stephen Perkins, president of the police union that represents jailers in Albuquerque says his jailers did nothing wrong.
“There was no policy violation,” Perkins told the ABQJournal Wednesday.
“Now, we have lay people . . . claiming things are excessive force.”
The post Watch: Albuquerque Jail Guards Torture Woman for Posters in Cell appeared first on PINAC News.