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 a guess but I bet she will get a windfall and it will go up in smoke.. Crack pipe smoke. She probably acted like an animal and was treated as one the poor thing..
Amazing eh? Next thing you know we'll all be sitting around watching people being starved to death!
None needed or expected.
I do have a weird sense of humor.
My wife wanted to get a couple of things from the store.
This was in the mid sixties and stretch pedal pushers were in style.
The store was only a short distance and it was a nice day so we walked.
The couple of items turned into three big paper bags of items.
She was carrying one bag and she slipped and fell.
The pedal pushers did not stretch far enough, so they split the inside seam.
I really did fall down I was laughing so hard, I could only catch my breath and start laugh louder.
The only damage was her pride and the pants.
At least she never wore stretch pants again.
Shakita Perdue should consider herself fortunate that she is not a victim of judicide. Still, if we had a just legal system in the country, anymore, I would agree that she is entitled to some award.
But, not $10M.
Now she's indignant and a sophisticated lady with an axe to grind. The sight of her sorry a$$ naked wouldn't have been worth $20.00, never mind $10 million.
My wife of almost 20 years rolls her eyes a lot too.
So do my friends!
10 million will sure buy her a lot of crack.
Nonetheless, Shakita was not in jail on a prison sentence and I suspect that while she will be awarded some money, it won't be anywhere near 10 million.
One of my nephews was getting married by a JP in his brides front yard. After the wedding the JP was paid and he gave my nephew back some of the money.
I whispered to my niece that was the first time I had seen a preacher take one look at the bride and give the groom
back his money.
She gave me a hard elbow in the ribs.
My wife called em clam diggers.......I told her if she pulled em down a bit..........I miss her.
My common sense says that if they restrained her in a chair there is no need for her to be nude.
No pictures - it is possible that the other prisoners might want to sue for temporary blindness after seeing the plantiff in her birthday suit.
MISTAKE?!
A friend of my mom's had just bought a matching set, shorts and top, and was showing them off.
Well, she went to reach to the top shelf of her cupboards, she's rather short, and in stretching on her tip toes to reach everyone hears teh distinct sound of fabric tearing.
Her shirt let loose at the seams, and the shorts let loose as well.
Her response: "Oh my.."
Advice for anyone ever locked up:
There is a no more dangerous place in the USA than a large urban-metro area jail....multiply that risk exponentially if you are white.
What happened to Shakita sure doesn't surprise me.
That's what I was thinking and I think that's wrong. There is no reason men should have to be subjected to that in the name of "equality" for the female guards.
Ten million sounds a little light to me. When the people who can arrest you and take away your freedom mess up like this example, it is necessary to get the attention of the politicians. Money is one sure way to do that.
When taxpayers see their money being paid out as the result of a lawsuit they can squeeze the politicians like a sponge until corrective changes are made.
Maybe the jailer was an illegal immigrant filling one of the jobs that the President says Americans won't do. If so we were just seeing how prisoners are routinely treated south of our border.
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