Tampa jailer given leniency after abusing quadriplegic
On January 29, 2009 a Tampa jailer dumped a quadriplegic on the floor because he would not get up to do a fingerprinting. Fortunately for the man in the wheelchair the whole incident was caught on tape so he could prove the abuse he experienced. After the tape was leaked to the media, the Tampa Police were lambasted by news agencies for hiring personnel with obvious anger management issues against the disabled. After a month of intense pressure, the jailer, 45 year old Charlette Marshall-Jones resigned. Ms. Marshall-Jones was arrested for assault and battery against a disabled person and was processed in the same prison that she worked in. She was finally found guilty and had the possibility of spending 3 years in jail because this was a third degree felony. The victim asked the judge to be lenient with the jailer as he did not want vengeance against her. The judge agreed and she was sentenced to 100 hours of community service working with the disabled. In addition, she was required to give up her police certification so that she could no longer work in any jail or police position. While the criminal aspect of this case has come to an end, the ex-deputy is still open to civil lawsuits against her behavior which were proved in criminal court. There was no word from the man that was dumped from his wheelchair as to whether he would sue or not. Because of this case, 29 other lawsuits have cropped up from disabled people that say they have been abused while under control of the Tampa Police Department. (Source: Tampa Bay.com)
This deputy was extremely lucky that her victim was not interested in pursuing the full damages against her in the law. She could have easily spent 3 years in prison and had a felony conviction on her record that would have made it all but impossible to get a job at anything but a minimum wage job. SCRN thinks that the prosecutor should have pushed hard on this case for the maximum because of the severity of the crime. The whole nation watched in horror as this woman grabbed the back of the victims wheelchair and proceeded to dump him on the floor. We were terrified that police would treat the disabled as a punching bag with no remorse or worry that they would be caught or punished. This behavior from the police would dictate that we have cameras in all aspects of police work that is routinely scanned for terrible situations like the one at the Tampa jail. The disabled typically have no way of defending themselves from an attack, with many worrying about broken bones since there are no muscles to tense up and protect bones during a fall.
Police have a difficult job but they have to keep a level head so that those in custody are not abused. It is easy to harm the disabled because they cannot fight back and most will keep quiet from fear of retribution of they complain. We all need to work to make sure that our jails do not turn into concentration camps where torture is the method of the day and the disabled are viewed as sub-humans that do not deserve to live. One has to wonder how many disabled people have been tortured while in custody. There have been cases of the disabled dying because they are handcuffed in positions that make it impossible to breathe. While state officials work to create new laws to protect the disabled, lets hope that the police take a look at their actions and how they effect those that are arrested.
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