L.A. County Sheriff's Deputies Sued by Noel Bender, Palmdale Apartment Manager, for More Alleged Brutality

By Simone Wilson,
Thu., Jun. 2 2011 at 5:55 PM

Bad press keeps rolling in for county brass​Updated after the jump: Guilty or not, today's hearing made the accused deputies look like real A-holes. Plus one for Bender.

More trouble for the increasingly scrutinized Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Department today: City News Service reports that Palmdale
apartment manager Noel Bender is suing the county and three sheriff's deputies for an alleged beating and wrongful jailing he suffered in August 2009.

Bender's lawyer says the man was handcuffed, "beaten by rogue cops
without provocation on false charges" and pepper-sprayed in the face
before being hauled off to county jail.

Over the last couple months, certain deputies' thuggish, ironically gang-like behavior has received heavy media attention:

A KTLA investigation into a brutish sheriff's gang called the "3,000 Boys" was followed by LA Weekly cover story "Men's County Jail Visitor Viciously Beaten by Guards," in which reporter Chris Vogel detailed a bloody attack on jail visitor Gabriel Carrillo by authorities:

The beating was unusual in that Carrillo was a visitor and
not an inmate. But the abuse he suffered is not uncommon. A growing
chorus of inmates tells of broken noses, shattered jaws and other
injuries from sustained beatings by Los Angeles County Sheriff's
deputies who serve as guards at Men's Central Jail. ...

"Los Angeles County jails are rapidly developing a reputation as
perhaps the worst in the nation," says Margaret Winter, a Washington,
D.C., attorney who leads the ACLU's National Prison Project effort to
combat abuses in jails. "I'm basing that it's the worst on that I've
never seen this accumulation of violence. The severity, the frequency
and the boldness is stunning, and I believe unprecedented."

Bender's case isn't as clear or strong as Carrillo's. (Although,
absurdly, it's actually Carrillo who's getting sued by the Sheriff's
Department for "attacking the deputies," instead of the other way
around.) In a video that the three defending deputies' attorney showed
in court today, shot directly after the arrest, Bender only has one
bruise to the head and admits he has "[done] something wrong."

But the allegations of "excessive force against" deputies Scott
Sorrow, Omar Chavez and Ray Hicks couldn't come at a more believable
time.

Bender alleges he offered to help them clean up a broken bottle that one of his tenants had thrown on the ground outside 933 East Avenue Q4, about a block from the Metro tracks. City News Service reports the rest:

According to [his lawyer,
Bradley] Gage, after Bender offered to clean up the glass from the
tenant, Sorrow became belligerent and handcuffed him. He said Chavez and
Hicks kicked his client after he had been thrown to the ground with the
handcuffs on.

Bender also was hit with pepper spray, Gage said.

But [defense attorney Harold] Becks said Bender was not struck after
the handcuffs were put on him. He also said the cuffs and the pepper
spray were used as a last resort because of his resistance.

Update: If Bender's case seemed to be fraying at all
yesterday, today's courthouse proceedings tightened things right back
up. City News Service reports that two previous renters at the Palmdale
complex took to the witness stand, confirming that they saw Sorrow,
Chavez and Hicks beat their former landlord on August 26, 2009.

In response, Sorrow conceded a little, admitting he did hit the
Palmdale man with a flashlight and douse him with two rounds of pepper
spray.

Did you want Bender to feel pain?, asked the prosecuting attorney.
"Sir, I didn't want to tickle him," Sorrow answered. (Smart alec.)

What's worse, witnesses said at least one of the deputies called
Bender an "N-word lover," in reference to the apartment complex's large
black population. So even if these guys are found "not guilty" of
beating and jailing an innocent man that August day, it's hard to deny
they were acting like a bunch of A-holes.

Originally posted June 1 at 3:20 p.m.

[@simone_electra/swilson@laweekly.com]

Tags:
beating, Noel Bender, pepper spray, police corruption, sheriff