America's "Toughest Sheriff" Joe Arpaio Sued Over Beating Death by Officers in Arizona Jail of Latino War Veteran

From [HERE] The family of a mentally ill man who died after being held in controversial Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio's custody filed a civil lawsuit on Tuesday alleging that detention staff taunted, beat and shocked the man with a stun gun in violation of his rights.

The suit was brought in state court by the family of Ernest "Marty" Atencio. It claimed that he was assaulted after he was booked into a Maricopa County lockup in Phoenix on December 15. He collapsed and died five days later. The lawsuit also names other plaintiffs including Maricopa County, the city of Phoenix and several individuals. It was caught on routine jail video tape. 

The claim alleges that excessive force, coupled with a series of failures by medical professionals to tend to  Atencio, contributed to the 44-year-old's death in December. He was a mentally ill Gulf War veteran.

Atencio had been in police custody for over four hours and had been showing signs of “acute psychosis,” the medical examiner reports. The video appears to show burly officers from Phoenix and Maricopa County piling on Atencio, apparently after he said something, though exactly what remains unclear because jail cameras don’t record audio. Atencio died four days after he was removed from a "safe cell" in the Fourth Avenue Jail. Atencio is at least the 12th inmate to die under strange circumstances in the Maricopa County jail system. (The Phoenix New Times lists 11 other such cases here.) 

 The notice of claim (Contains graphic images)

Six months after he was buried with full military honors, the Maricopa County medical examiner issued a report that concluded that Atencio died of cardiac arrest, acute psychosis, medical problems and "law-enforcement subdual," but the report did not list a manner of death.

Atencio's family believes that the manner of death was homicide, committed at the hands of sheriff's detention officers in an altercation that began when two Phoenix police officers began to struggle with Atencio after he refused to remove his left shoe. They wanted the shoe removed to be scanned as he prepared to enter the jail.

The Phoenix officers took Atencio to the ground, and surveillance footage shows the detention officers dragging Atencio into a safe cell, where the number of officers in the small cell obscured their actions from the camera.

A safe cell is a room designed to reduce inmates' ability to injure themselves or others.

The claim contends that at least one officer punched Atencio and that another officer shocked Atencio with a stun gun six times, with several of those strikes coming within inches of his heart. [MORE] 

The case is the latest of numerous suits faced by Maricopa County lawman Arpaio, who styles himself "America's Toughest Sheriff" and is known for sweeps to round up illegal immigrants and no-frills treatment of inmates in county jails.

It states that Atencio was taunted, "tased, punched and manhandled" by detention staff who used "excessive, unreasonable and gratuitous force" in violation of his constitutional rights.

The suit seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages.

In a statement, Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Deputy Chief Jack MacIntyre declined to comment on the lawsuit pending what he said was "our review of the complaints raised today."

Arpaio, who is seeking re-election to a sixth term in office in November, is also facing a U.S. Justice Department probe and lawsuit relating to alleged civil rights abuses by his office, including accusations of widespread racial profiling in his immigration enforcement.

A federal judge is expected to rule soon in another suit brought against Arpaio, this one a class-action case by five Hispanic citizens who claimed they were stopped by the sheriff's deputies because of their ethnicity.