When push comes to force

An aggressive patient fled from hospital grounds and threatened to fight two Kyle police officers who then shot their Tasers at the mentally ill man. A Buda officer chased an intoxicated man, who had jumped from a slow-moving truck, and when his Taser didn’t faze the suspect, the officer tackled him.

A local man complained that several deputies searched his car illegally after they pulled handguns and an assault rifle on him for being in a high school parking lot after hours. Jail guards quashed a riot when they deployed Tasers and brute strength on a gang of inmates.

This is only a peek into 1,541 use-of-force reports filed on 524 suspects and inmates by the Buda and Kyle police departments and Hays County Sheriff’s Office from January 2009 to mid-May 2012. Many of the cases involved multiple officers.

Whether in the streets or the jailhouse, officers had to make split-second decisions against combative criminals. Most officers employed the appropriate amount of force while a select few inflicted too much, according to more than 2,600 internal documents released to the Hays Free Press.

Designed for training purposes, the use-of-force report discloses if certain measures were effective. They also help track the acts of harsh officers. In the reports, dozens of offenders received injuries, all considered to be minor. Three Hays County officers were fired for excessive force, yet neither agency had written records of supervisors handing other types of disciplinary action, training or counseling for officers’ actions.

Buda and Kyle police also claimed not to have any formal citizen complaints for excessive force while the sheriff’s office had at least eight, only one of them sustained.

Unjustified force
Last July, Deputy Colin Owen responded to a drunken driving crash, in which a Wimberley volunteer fireman reportedly crashed into a fence. Owen turned off his duty microphone and tried to cover up the crash, although he knew the fireman reeked of alcohol, an internal investigation uncovered.

An argument between Owen and the property owner upset about his damaged fence ensued. Owen hollered at the man and in an effort to arrest him he snatched the man’s arm across the fence. The property owner resisted, so Owen threatened him with his Taser.

Internal affairs found that Owen violated five department rules, one of them excessive force, and he was subsequently terminated. It was the only sustained use-of-force complaint since 2009, according to sheriff’s Inspector Bruce Boardman.

In another use-of-force case, Deputy David Clay Bain was named in a successful lawsuit after he and another deputy detained 80-year-old Robert Threadgill, who was taken to the hospital for multiple bruises, and wrist and ankle sprains.

Former Sheriff Tommy Ratliff, who lost in last month’s election, recently said both deputies were not disciplined for the June 2010 incident. The suit claimed they attempted to cover up their “police brutality” by filing bogus charges of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct that were later dismissed. A settlement of roughly $60,000 was reached, county officials said.

Bain, who allegedly had a history of steroid use, ran into trouble again when he used excessive force on another suspect in December 2010. This time, the sheriff’s office fired him, says Boardman, who investigated the case.

In May 2009, Corrections Officer John Ruiz helped other jail guards move a disruptive inmate into an isolation cell. As the handcuffs were removed, the inmate turned violent and officers struggled to restrain him. When the officers got the inmate onto the ground, Ruiz punched him in the chest three times with a closed fist. Ruiz was dismissed following a probe into the incident, investigators say.

Sheriff’s officers also failed to note whether or not an injury occurred in many other incidents, according to records.
Boardman admitted that they are still working out some “bugs” in the reporting process.

A criminologist expert warns there could be consequences for flawed reports, especially if litigation arises.

“An agency needs to know how much force they are using,” says Lorie Fridell, an associate professor and graduate director in the Department of Criminology at University of South Florida. “It certainly seems to be bad management by the supervision.”
Despite erroneous reporting, Fridell lauded the sheriff’s office for ditching officers who used excessive force.

“When you see strong action like that, one interpretation is that this indicates serious misuse of force, but another is that this agency is holding officers accountable,” says Fridell, who has conducted more than 20 years of research on law enforcement.

Hispanics underreported?
Another part of the use-of-force reports that seemed unclear was the offender’s race. While Buda and Kyle police appeared to be accurate on its forms, imprecision by the 175-officer sheriff’s department emerged again.

More than 100 offenders labeled as “white” on sheriff reports resembled Hispanic origin in their respective mug shots accessed on the county’s website. The sheriff’s patrol division reported 149 white suspects and 36 Hispanic suspects. The jail division had 242 whites and 21 Hispanics.

In other words, the sheriff’s office had whites account for 81 percent and Hispanics only 12 percent of total offenders, while the 2010 Census calculated whites at 59 percent and Hispanics at 35 percent in the county’s population.

Sheriff’s officials argued that when Hispanics are booked into jail they are classified as white.

Texas State University Professor Joycelyn Pollock, who teaches correctional law and has held positions at the New York State Department of Corrections, suggested it could also be “laziness or an attempt to shade the patterns so that it doesn’t look like minorities are disproportionately the target.”

Racial profiling expert Brian Withrow says that inconsistencies in race reporting are not uncommon since law enforcement agencies may record data differently. He also emphasized that the census has altered its race categories five times since 1960.

“Race is one of those reporting criteria that can be difficult to discern,” says Withrow, an associate professor at Texas State’s Department of Criminal Justice. “No one really knows what everybody’s race or ethnicity is anymore.”

Jailhouse ruckus
Jailers certainly dealt with the roughest crowd. In numerous reports, belligerent inmates were known to punch, head-butt, claw, kick, bite, scream and spit at officers. One time, it took three Taser shots and six officers to subdue one resilient inmate just booked on an assault charge. Another aggressive inmate possessed a spoon shank and yelled at officers saying he’d rather die than be raped in prison.

Some inmates barricaded themselves in cells with mattresses, preparing to battle officers. One incident was on the brink of a small-scale riot when a crew of inmates tried to stop officers from placing a fellow inmate into segregation. Officers suited up in riot gear and had to tase two inmates several times to restore order.

Intoxicated and mentally ill inmates were reportedly hostile or suicidal. A male inmate tried to choke himself with a blanket and one woman tried to cut herself with her belly button ring not seen during pat down and was later tased after she violently grabbed an officer’s groin. Other inmates often banged their heads against windows and doors and one disturbed inmate smeared feces inside an isolation cell.

Kyle Police Chief Jeff Barnett said that his department has seen a rise in encounters with suspects suffering mental health issues since Seton Medical Center-Hays opened in 2009.

“We’re dealing with lots of mental illness suspects at Seton and in different areas of the city,” he said.

He has noticed that some disturbed suspects are former U.S. military members with combat experience having troubles adjusting to civilian life. This month, the Pentagon announced that the suicide rate across the armed forces is averaging almost one a day this year, and that doesn’t even count those recently discharged.

“They’re in a mindset where they can cause harm to themselves or others,” he said. “I’m afraid it’s only going to get worse.”