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Corrections Agency Settles With Paralyzed Inmate
April 18, 2015
A paralyzed inmate at a Northwest Florida prison who was denied the use of a wheelchair and faced retaliation for suing the Department of Corrections has reached a settlement with the agency, according to lawyers representing the prisoner.
The complaint, filed in federal court, alleged that Santa Rosa Correctional Institution officials for more than a year prevented Richard Jackson, who is paralyzed in his lower limbs, from using a wheelchair in his cell, forcing the inmate to crawl on his hands and knees to get to his bunk or to use the toilet or sink.
A year after he filed the lawsuit, Jackson was transferred to the Northwest Florida Reception Center, where guards and others allegedly retaliated against the inmate for failing to drop the case. Within hours after arriving at the Chipley prison, a guard handcuffed Jackson to his wheelchair and repeatedly punched him in the face and kicked him while threatening that “he would be getting more if he did not drop the lawsuit,” according to the complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and the Florida Justice Institute.
The settlement requires the department to pay $97,000 for Jackson’s legal fees and damages and also requires that he be allowed to use his wheelchair.
“The abuse and violence that goes on in Florida prisons violates the principles that our Constitution was created to protect. With the eyes of the state on our prisons as more horror stories seem to come out of our prisons every week, we hope this settlement will bring us one step closer to ending the toxic culture of violence that has plagued the Florida Department of Corrections,” ACLU of Florida lawyer Benjamin Stevenson said in a statement.
by The News Service of Florida
Comments
8 Responses to “Corrections Agency Settles With Paralyzed Inmate”
The only part of the story that said anything about a officer said that the officer cuff the inmate to the chair which is regulation but how did he cUff him to the chair if he didn’t have a chair and it said prison officials which is the administration not the co they only do what they are told if it’s true it looks like a warden trying to slim his way out of something
Once again i say don’t believe everything you read and only people that are not naive and so gullible should sit on these juries that award these scumbags money for committing crimes and continue to be con artist in prison but keep paying them and rewarding them for good stories and one day when you are the victim I bet you have a different opinion
The people in charge of the criminals SHOULD NOT be criminals themselves. AND, if they do these things and get sued, THEY should pay as individuals. The lawsuit rewards SHOULD NOT be pay with taxpayers’ money. SHAME SHAME on those who have a lifestyle of criminal behavior and DOUBLE shame on those who are criminals themselves watching them. There ARE really GOOD and good- hearted people in law enforcement. All others NEED to be rooted out and FIRED. Only those who believe in Good should watch over the bad, and be a positive influence on them. Stuff like this makes me sick.
Umm excuse me but did you two not read the story above? The whole story was about an inmate who sued the Corrections dept. because a CO TOOK HIS WHEELCHAIR WITHOUT A DOCTORS PERMISSION BECAUSE HE IS PARAYLIZED.
No one in security can mess with any medical issues, if an inmate has a walker or wheelchair medical has to be the ones to take them or give them.
if you new anything about prison you would know that a correctional officer can’t take any medical device or medication from a inmate without consent from medical staff so don’t believe everything you read or someone’s lazy brother tells you people complain about prison but keep coming back stay out and your problems are solved except for where you will eat where you will sleep and how can you manipulate you family to believe some sob story about how you can’t make it because it’s someone else fault
I have a brother in prison in Walton county correctional he has sever blood clots in his legs and was told by a doctor that he couldn’t stand for more than 10 min at a time. When he went in to prison they issued him a walker as he had one on the outside and he had a prescription for one. He got to keep it for a month and then a CO took it from him and told him he was tired of seeing him sitting down. They still have not given him the walker back even though the prison doctor told him he needed it.
And people wonder why prison gangs murder COs and their civilian family members. Google the subject.