Sheriff's deputies forced inmates to perform 'gladiator-style' battles, says PD
San Francisco sheriff’s deputies have been accused of forcing county jail inmates to engage in “gladiator-style” fights for their own amusement.
Public Defender Jeff Adachi, at a press conference Thursday, said deputies arranged and gambled on the fights, forced inmates to train for them and told them to lie if they needed medical attention, the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times report.
Adachi said the deputies threatened the inmates with violence or withheld food if they refused to fight.
In one incident, he said, the deputies forced the smallest inmate, Rico Palikiko Garcia, who weighs 150 pounds, to fight the largest inmate, Stanley Harris, who weighs 350 pounds. The deputies also appeared to delight in taunting Harris with jokes about his weight and forced him to participate in “boot camp-style exercises,” Adachi said.
“It was a sadistic pleasure,” Adachi told the Times. “This was like something right out of Game of Thrones.”
At least four deputies at County Jail No. 4 have been placed on paid administrative leave, including Scott Neu, who was accused in 2006 of forcing inmates to perform sexual acts on him. The case resulted in an out-of-court settlement.
An attorney for the San Francisco Deputy Sheriff’s Association, the union that represents the deputies, called the allegations “exaggerated” and that the fights were “little more than horseplay.”
Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi said he was “extremely disturbed” by the allegations. He said the department’s internal affairs unit has launched an investigation into the allegations and that he has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct its own investigations.
