TX Prison BURTALITY

"TAKE ACTION"... ask your Texas Representative "Why guards are not punished with the "same" Criminal Laws that Citizens are held to.Why they are not held more accountable than All Others? Why Are they exempt from the horrows of the Brutal America Prison System that many have created?"3/2/08

Former TDCJ officer receives probation
By PAUL STONE
The Palestine Herald
PALESTINE— A former Texas Department of Criminal Justice correctional officer was sentenced to six months probation last week after being found guilty of violating the civil rights of a person in custody two years ago. An Anderson County jury found Blake Jones, 24, of Palestine guilty of the Class A misdemeanor offense of violation of the civil rights of a person in custody last Tuesday at the conclusion of a two-day trial at the Anderson County Courthouse.
By an agreement of the parties, Jones received six months probation and was assessed a $1,500 fine following the jury's guilty verdict, according to Allyson Mitchell of the Special Prosecution Unit of the attorney general's office.
Jones was a Correctional Officer III at the TDCJ's Coffield Unit in Tennessee Colony on July 18, 2005 when he and co-defendant, Dax Wizenreid, who was also a Coffield correctional officer at the time, allegedly handcuffed and beat inmate Leroy Ellis in a fourth-floor shower area. The 28-year-old Wizenreid has yet to face trial. "There was really no reason why it happened," Mitchell said about the assault. "None of that came out. The defendant did not testify." Around 9:30 p.m. on July 18, 2005, Jones allegedly got Ellis out of his fourth-floor cell and took him to a shower area about four cells down where the pair was joined by Wizenreid, according to Mitchell. Ellis, an administrative segregation inmate, had been "shook down" earlier in the day, according to Mitchell.
"When they got to the shower, Dax and Jones pushed Ellis into the shower," Mitchell said. "Mind you, Ellis is still handcuffed. Once they got in the shower, Ellis testified that Dax and Jones both struck him repeatedly about the face. This went on about four or five minutes." Ellis suffered two separate injuries to the forehead requiring "multiple staples"; a laceration to the back of the head needing five staples to close; a "possible" orbital fracture; and had both eyes swollen shut, according to Mitchell.
The inmate had "numerous bruises on his chest" and other areas of his body, she added.
Jones, meanwhile, sustained a "small bump to the side of his head" and some bruising, according to Mitchell.
Jones was terminated from his job as a correctional officer a short time later following an internal investigation, Mitchell stated.
Mitchell noted her office's job is to prosecute crimes committed on "TDCJ property whether it be inmates or officers.
"Although they're inmates," Mitchell said, "we have a duty to protect them."
The assault on Ellis was even worse because he was "handcuffed and couldn't protect himself," she added.
Third State District Judge Mark Calhoon presided over the trial.
——— Paul Stone may be contacted via e-mail at pstone@palestineher ald.com Copyright © 1999-2006 cnhi, inc.