Posted on 01/14/2012 12:01:24 PM PST by Duke of Qin
A mentally ill grandfather died after police officers strapped him naked to a chair, smothered him with a 'spit hood' and pepper-sprayed him 10 times during a 43-hour ordeal, it has been claimed.
Nick Christie, 62, was allegedly tortured in the 'Devil's Chair' at Lee County jail after being detained by Florida police officers in March 2009 following a 'mental breakdown'.
The hood, designed to stop him from spitting at officers, meant he could not escape the noxious spray's fumes - and he was never allowed to clean the residue from his body.
His family is now suing Lee County Sheriff's Department for 'wrongful death'.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2085628/Nick-Christie-Mentally-ill-prisoner-strapped-Devils-Chair-pepper-sprayed-death.html#ixzz1jSkweFsk
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
And even if he was a young healthy-looking man, we’re not supposed to treat people like that in America.
“Why the hell do we need to go to the British press to get any news any more?”
Good question. And I’m very leery of clicking the link because I’ve realized that all the bad viruses I’ve gotten have been after I’ve been to some brit paper site.
Same way those idiot jackboot sucking toadies always do.
This happened 2 1/2 years ago..
Except for Monshay Gibbs, who testified, none have been identified.
Who else was involved.
Well, for one thing, if he’s restrained and has a spit hood on, it’s hard to understand why pepper-spray would even come into the picture. What were they trying to accomplish by spraying him? Yeah, that’s a tough one to answer.
Thanks for the ping LucyT. I’m shocked, and confused as to what could possibly been their motive for such treatment of a man such as Mr. Christie. I can’t comment as I wasn’t there, but I did notice in the article that Mr. Christie went to Florida to visit his brother, and there was never again any mention of his brother in the article after he arrived in Florida. Only that he was in some Hotel, and his condition was unacceptable behavior, thus the police were called.
Wondering about his brother, and what happened that he wasn’t with him.
I’m certain we shall learn more in the future on this one. It seems the treatment was quite unnecessary, and vile to say the least. This man shouldn’t be dead at the hands of anyone much less trusted police officers serving a community.
There is no definitive answer here. I can only generalize about how we would handled it.
It is possible that we would have initially arrested him for being drunk in public. After a few hours he would have been released with no charges being filed. Our jurisdiction simply won't waste time going to court on drunk in public cases.
If he had gone back to the hotel, and had been arrested for trespassing, we would have cited him and told him not to go back. If he went back, we might have arrested him, and then the jail would have cited him right out again. And this could have happened several times. (Note here that our jurisdiction wouldn't have considered "trespassing" as something to incarcerate someone for a lengthy period of time without a court order.) Hopefully, at some point, and hopefully early, someone who had been told that he had mental health problems would have directed patrol or detention personnel to take him to the hospital and turned over to mental health personnel.
What was lacking in this case was compassion and common sense. And no amount of proper procedures training can be counted upon when common sense is lacking.
Good God! How does this kind of thing still happen? You’d think it was 1940s Florida.
__________________________________________________________-
1940s Florida? I was thinking more along the lines of the 1930s Lubyanka in Moscow, or perhaps the Prinz-Albrecht-Straße in Berlin during the same time period.
This is insane, and the fact that apparently the DA thinks nothing is amiss tells me one must tread carefully when visiting Florida.
Puts abu graib in perspective doesn’t it.
Baghdad under Saddam Hussein
America under Barack Hussein
A difference in degree, not in kind.
Prayers for his family.
Comment #6. I have said this a hundred times if I said once. I even did blog post back in 07 I think because the Daily Mail had a wonderful piece on W with pictures of him with many wounded, amputees, and severely burned veterans. Not one story did I ever see in the AMERICAN press on what W did for veterans. In fact is was at Ft Hood right after the shooting and again that was reported in the Daily Mail.
The MSM in this country is EFFING disgusting. I can’t wait for NBC and the alike to go bankrupt!
Pepper-spray 10 times is clearly crazy.
But the hood and the initial handling and the chair all seem like proper training. I was just interested because I’ve watched that “Jail” show on TV and I’m surprised at how anything happens right. It’s a hard job.
Lockdown - County Jail (1/5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8k_BR_KDe0
“Tell the truth, warts and all” —the job of the press. BUT NOW, when you want to hear the REAL USA news, you must read a BRITISH newspaper.
Is it any wonder that the really huge scandals in the USA are now broken by former gift-shop clerks & high-school kids...?
When Abu Graib broke, the NYT carried it on page 1 above the fold for THIRTY-TWO CONSECUTIVE DAYS. For how long will we hear of Piss Gate?
HA.
When we get consistent coverage of the real news we will have TWO COMPLETELY SEPERATE MEDIA SYTEMS.
I’ll toss in at least one Missouri State Reserve Trooper that is out of control in his civilian job. I never want to run into him with his tin star and sidearm with his temper and lack of judgement. I used to work for the nut for a short while.
“You switched forces in mid story.”
I forgot not everyone lives in So Cal and doesn’t know that one of the Orange County cops was ex-LAPD.
When you’re a bad enough cop to actually get fired from the LAPD, you can go peddle your third-string services to any smaller city police force, such as Fullerton (the city in Orange County).
The cop in question was actually let go from the LAPD with a huge disability pension, almost a hundred percent of his salary, because of an injury. The thinking was he couldn’t be a cop anymore. Then he turns around and goes to work — as a patrol cop — for Fullerton.
So he’s a crook as well as a murderer.
Yay LAPD!
Well-stated, dsc. Thanks for the ping, LucyT.
Condolences to Nick Christie's family and friends.
A person who is combative can be strapped to a chair to prevent further assaults on detention personnel, and to try to prevent the person from hurting himself. Medical or detention personnel should remove the spit hood if they leave the room and the person is unattended.
I can't emphasize the word "generalize" enough though. The underlying issue in this case is the problem of mental illness. As it is, there is no definitive law enforcement solution to a person who keeps committing crimes, other than incarceration. And if the person has a mental health problem, the closest to solving the problem with that particular individual is the get him some mental health care. And even then, there is no guarantee that at some point he will not commit additional crimes, or harm himself or others.
In the case we are posting about, law enforcement personnel had the ample opportunity to make reasonable decisions, and it appears that some of them failed miserably.
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