Posted on 03/27/2005 7:33:55 AM PST by mhking
After being jailed last summer in Union City, Shakita Perdue was stripped, strapped to a chair and left exposed to male prisoners and guards for hours, according to an investigation by jail officials of the incident.
Now, she is suing those she says are responsible for $10 million.
This week, Perdue, 28, filed the lawsuit in federal court against the city, the South Fulton County Municipal Regional Jail and Georgia Correctional Health, the firm that handled medical needs at the Union City-owned jail. She charges that her civil rights were abused by her jailers that night.
"I had never been treated like that before in my life," said Perdue, who was booked into the jail on a drug charge. "It was a traumatic experience. It has messed up my nerves."
In an internal report on the jail's investigation of the incident, jailer Tremata Anthony said she strapped Perdue in the chair because Perdue was drunk, abusive and threatened to kill herself the night of her arrest.
The jailer was fired 17 days after the incident occurred for failure "to conduct herself in a professional manner using sound judgment at all times," the internal report states. The report listed nine violations of jail policy in the treatment of Perdue. The report indicates that there is an "isolation room" at the jail in which Perdue could have been placed. It also says Anthony filed no incident report, nor did she justify stripping Perdue.
The internal report was provided to the Journal-Constitution by Perdue's attorney, Eldridge Suggs IV, who obtained it through Georgia's Open Records Act.
Anthony wrote in the report that Perdue's paper gown was taken away and her hair was cut because she tried to strangle herself with the gown and with her braids.
The jailer said that she put pepper spray on the chair straps because Perdue tried to chew through them.
In the same report, a nurse with Georgia Correctional Health, Cathy Adams, wrote that Perdue was restrained in an area where detainees are brought to be booked.
"Due to her violent behavior, she was held in the cage in the booking area until she was calm enough to be moved to the medical area," Adams wrote.
When a male officer asked if he could cover Perdue, Anthony wouldn't allow it, another officer wrote in the report.
Repeated calls to Anthony for comment were not returned.
Helen Turner, a Union City councilwoman, said she and other city officials first learned of the incident in an area newspaper.
"I think it is a disgrace that we didn't know anything about it," she said.
Turner called Perdue's treatment "inhumane," and said, "I was appalled to know it happened here."
Not commenting
The South Fulton County Municipal Regional Jail is owned by Union City, used by several nearby municipalities and governed by a five-member authority created by the Legislature.
J. Clark Boddie, the mayor of Palmetto and a member of the jail authority, said he would not comment about Perdue's lawsuit because the jail is named in the suit.
" I am not at liberty to talk about it at all," said Boddie, who is also a U.S. marshal. "I am familiar with the occurrence, I just can't talk about it."
Repeated calls this week to Union City Mayor Ralph Moore and City Administrator Ski Saxby were not returned. Nor were calls to Dennis Davenport, an attorney representing the city and the jail.
Georgia Correctional Health, a private company, no longer provides health care to the jail in Union City. A representative of its insurance carrier said he hasn't seen a copy of the suit.
According to the jail's own report, the incident began after midnight last July 31 when Fairburn police arrested Perdue on charges of disorderly conduct for fighting with her cousin.
When the officers ran a routine background check, they found Perdue was wanted in nearby Union City for not completing all of her required community service on a previous marijuana charge.
Fairburn police turned Perdue over to Union City authorities, and she was taken to the city's jail.
Perdue, who admits she'd been drinking that night, said she was angry and crying when she entered the jail because her cousin had not been arrested along with her. But she didn't try to kill herself, she said.
According to the investigation, conducted by jail Sgt. James Hall, Perdue was taken to the jail's shower room at 2:47 a.m.and returned less than five minutes later in a paper gown. The report said she was placed into the "cage" in the middle of the holding cell.
At 2:55 a.m., Perdue tried to choke herself, Hall wrote. A minute later, Anthony, the jailer, and Adams, the nurse, went into the cage, took off the paper gown and placed Perdue "in the restraint chair nude," Hall's report said.
Anthony's account said Perdue was threatening to kill herself. "Perdue started to bang her head against the wall," she wrote.
Efforts to help
At one point during the hours Perdue was strapped in the chair, Hall reported that two officers attempted to help her. One asked Anthony if he could go into the cage and cover Perdue because there were male officers coming in with male inmates. Anthony told him no.
Another officer, after Anthony repeatedly told him not to cover Perdue, hung a blanket over the side of the cage, "so that other inmates could not look at her nude body," according to the report.
The blanket provided incomplete cover, Hall noted.
At 6 a.m., more than five hours after her arrest, Perdue was still naked and strapped to the chair when another nurse, Arlene Campbell, arrived at work.
"I found the female [Perdue] in four-point restraints in a chair. [She] was completely nude with exposed female genitalia." Campbell's report went on to say men across from the booking center "were laughing and making remarks under their breath."
Perdue said male prisoners were allowed to sit and watch her. At least one male officer made lewd comments, she said.
Her attorney said Perdue's civil rights were trampled.
"I am going to relentlessly pursue justice on behalf of Ms. Perdue," Suggs said. "I want to make them an example."
Suggs acknowledges that Perdue has not been a model citizen. She had been arrested several times prior to the July incident, she doesn't have a steady job and she doesn't have custody of any of her five children, ages 4 to 11.
"We are in the process of helping her rehabilitate her life and we will use whatever proceeds that we are going to win to put her back in the middle of the road," Suggs said.
Just for those who dare crack a southern joke, Union City is one of the most corrupt, and liberal/socialist parts of URBAN Atlanta.
Once her hands were tied, there was no way she could strangle herself on a gown even if it were made of chain mail. You are attempting to excuse the inexcusable.
She was restrained because she tried to strangle herself. The person I was responding to stated that she couldn't strangle herself with those paper gowns. She could. The restraint occurred after the attempt to strangle herself with her braids and the gown. I am not real sympathetic to this DRUG ADDICT who has been arrested NUMEROUS TIMES BEFORE. Had she not taken whatever action she took to CAUSE her arrest, and not made such an ass out of herself once she was arrested, then she wouldn't have found herself in the position to start with. I default to the police officer. To hell with lying drug addicts.
This county is something else. Chicago used to strip search female arrestees on traffic charges but nothing thie stupid.
What makes you think they were "in on it together?"
don't worry about it...it was a joke I missed totally and completely on a bad day ok? All is well...
"Possibly in this case, for some of the prisoners, its not like they caught a glimpse of something they haven't seen before."
-That's nasty (but funny as hell).
What lawyer isn't!!!
If you are going to come down on the side of the law in some cases, you have to in all cases (or else defy the law and hope the legislature is sympathetic enough not to impeach).
She doesn't deserve a penny as no damages were caused that she didn't cause herself.
She wanted to rebel against all authority, even to the point of attempting to take her own life. Those with authority apparantly performed sequentially more constraining efforts to insure she didn't harm herself or others within the logistical support they were afforded.
Lesson to be learnt is that if one doesn't want to lose control over their behavior, then they need to discipline themselves regarding their behavior without forcing others to intervene and control it for them.
If it were a perfect world, a countersuit would ensue requiring her to repay all taxpayers and the law enforcement officers for her encroachment upon our property and civil rights. I suspect some men's souls might have been irreparably damaged by having to view her naked.
I did the paper towel test. It took six before I had trouble pulling them apart and ten of the ones at work which are about the strength of one of those paper gowns.
Sorry, don't buy it.
But even if it was some sort of super strong paper gown there was no need to leave her uncovered after she was restrained in the chair.
There is no way to compare your paper towel test with mine. I wasn't there for yours, and you weren't there for mine. Plus, I don't know what kind you used and you don't know what kind I used. A paper gown provides a lot of paper. The more paper that can be twisted, the stronger the resulting "rope" will be. Plus, the paper wouldn't have to support her full weight if she were sitting on the floor with her neck restricted enough to choke her. Now, that being said, she did try to strangle herself, according to reports. Therefore, they took the device with which she was trying to strangle herself away, and I believe they also cut her hair because she was trying to strangle herself with her braids. Also, we do not know what kind of relationship the accusing officer had with his fellow police officer. Maybe he saw it as an opportunity to get rid of her for some past wrong. Maybe not. We do not know. Since we do not know, I believe a police officer ANY DAY over a drug addict. If the officer behaved inappropriately I would not object to her being fired. I do not believe this useless piece of trash drug addict deserves one cent from the taxpayers of the community involved. She put herself in the position to begin with by A) being arrested and B) acting like a complete imbecile.
A minute later, Anthony, the jailer, and Adams, the nurse, went into the cage, took off the paper gown and placed Perdue "in the restraint chair nude," Hall's report said.
They took her gown off of her. That means that she was not trying to make some sort of McGyver noose out of it. Otherwise it would read that they took the gown away from her.
When you are holding something they take it away, when you are wearing something they take it off.
This was investigated. People were fired.
Even in the days when we used the stocks we didn't put them in naked.
There is more then one police officer quoted in the report. More then one tried to intervene. They thought it was wrong to do this. So you can take the side of the jailer and nurse who engaged in inappropriate behavior but you can not take the side of the police officers who were the witnesses.
You have all but called the police officers who witnessed this liars. That it happened is not in dispute. That it was wrong is not in dispute. How much, if anything she should get is.
I did not call anyone a liar. I said we don't know because we weren't there. I also said that if the officer behaved inappropriately then I have no problem with her being fired. That being said, this lady doesn't deserve one cent from the county. She owns some blame here.
To the extent that if she had not been drunk in public she would not have been in the jail yes. However we expect minimum standards of professional conduct from our employees even for drunks.
The employer shares responsibility when a employee goes off the rails on the job because they are acting in their name.
What happened here is NOT in question.
What if anything she should get is the question. You say nothing because you don't approve of her. I think she is owed something, but not much, because some of the blame is hers but the reaction was excessive.
yes, if the union doesn't defend these actions.
Right there you just called the police officers who gave witness and the one who wrote the report liars.
You doubt their word but do not doubt the word of a out of control jailer. Interesting.
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