Suit: Deputies used excessive force

The Pulaski County sheriff’s office and two of its former deputies have been named in a federal excessive-force lawsuit that says an inmate was permanently crippled by a deputy who, the suit says, had a history of violent behavior.

The lawsuit was filed by Kevin Foy, a Little Rock man who says the jailers severed ligaments in his arm during a forceful strip search in 2014. Foy is being represented by civil-rights attorney Morris Thompson.

According to Thompson, Foy is unable to open or use his right hand.

On Dec. 17, 2014, Foy was sitting at the River Cities Travel Center bus depot drinking when a Little Rock police officer noticed his slurred speech and glazed eyes, according to reports.

“Take me to jail. I have warrants anyway,” Foy told the officer, his arrest report says.

The Little Rock officer arrested him and turned him over to the custody of the Pulaski County jail staff.

During his jail intake, former Pulaski County Deputy Austin Callahan was inventorying Foy’s possessions — some loose change, $15 in cash — when Foy reached for the change on the table, according to the lawsuit. Callahan then accused Foy of pocketing some of the coins, which Foy denied, the suit says.

“When Foy told Callahan he had nothing, Callahan angrily told him to take off his clothes to be strip searched,” the suit says. “Foy objected to being strip searched but did not resist or fight with Callahan,” the suit says.

Callahan spun Foy around and held him against a wall with the assistance of another jail staff member, Allie Deleon, who is also named as a defendant in the suit, the filing says.

The jailers then bent Foy forward against a metal sink, where his arm was brought down against a rigid edge and sliced open, according to the lawsuit.

Neither Callahan nor Deleon were cited for any wrongdoing by the department in relation to Foy’s injury, according to personnel files obtained from the sheriff’s office. But Callahan had been reprimanded for numerous behavioral violations since he was hired in December 2011 as a patrol deputy and was terminated in May 2016, reports say.

Deleon resigned from her position in January 2016 after accepting a position as a police officer with the North Little Rock Police Department. Her Pulaski County personnel file showed no suspensions or violations of a violent nature.

Foy’s suit also names Pulaski County Sheriff Doc Holladay as a defendant and accuses the sheriff of knowing that Callahan “had established a pattern of very poor decision making … that made him an extreme liability to the Sheriff’s department,” yet the sheriff failed to take “appropriate corrective action.”