Former Georgia Corrections Commissioner Supports Lawsuit Over Jailhouse “Rapid Response Team” Abuses

Several former inmates of a county jail in
Georgia allege in a class action lawsuit filed last year that the
Gwinnett County sheriff and his“rapid response team” abused the use
of restraint chairs at the jail, leaving inmates in it for hours at
a time. The Gwinnett Daily Post
describes what it saw of the practice, apparently used more
than 200 times in the six months before the lawsuit was filed last
summer:

The rapid response team is a SWAT-style group made up
of highly trained deputies. Videos previously viewed by the Daily
Post show members, upon being summoned, staging outside a cell in
helmets, vests and masks before entering, pinning down the inmate
in question and putting them in the chair. Some were shot with
pepperballs prior to deputies entering the cell.

Last week, a former Georgia Department of Corrections
commissioner who spent 40 years working in the system, filed a
report in favor of the lawsuit’s claims.
Via the Post:

[Allen] Ault’s thoughts included the following:

— “In my opinion, the problem is not how they conduct a takedown,
but rather, the almost total indiscriminate use of the RRT that
have now become standard practice in the jail.”

— “Although it would be a daunting task to get the actual number of
deployments of other Response Teams, I would venture to state,
based upon my experience in the field and without fear of
contradiction, that the Gwinnett County RRT has been deployed more
often in the last thirteen years then (sic) the combined total of
all other County, State and Federal facilities located in the state
of Georgia.”

— “Instead of the RRT being deployed as the last resort, it is
being deployed as the first choice of preference by staff to handle
a ‘problem’ inmate. Upon arrival, the RRT routinely uses force
where no force is justified.”

— “It was also obvious that it was being used to punish some
individuals who had been ‘vulgar’ in either language and/or deed in
‘reception’ or elsewhere in the jail before being placed in a
cell.”

— “… way too often, in my opinion the ‘takedown’ and the use of the
‘restraint chair’ is a ruse for implementing excessive
force.”

The alleged misuse of law enforcement tools to hide excessive
force is not unique to Georgia. A recent newspaper report in
Philadelphia
chronicled the apparent return of the “nickel ride,” when
police drive vans recklessly to inflict injury on detainee
passengers. As Alonzo Harris, the crooked cop in Training
Day played by Denzel Washington, observed after a use of
excessive force, “it’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove.”
Police unions and deferential local governments have often helped
make even that
not enough.

You can watch Gwinnett County’s rapid response team in action
here: