Former Oklahoma jail detainees say officers played Baby Shark song as ‘torture tactic’
Former officers at the Oklahoma City jail are being accused of torturing at least four former detainees with methods that ranged from physical attacks to being forced to listen repeatedly to loud music, according to a federal lawsuit.
In a civil rights suit, reported by the Washington Post, that was filed in federal court this week, four people formerly incarcerated at the Oklahoma City jail said that they were subject to “torture tactics” that included verbal and physical assault as well as standing for hours at a time while being forced to listen to the children’s song Baby Shark.
The lawsuit was filed against the Oklahoma county sheriff, Tommie Johnson III, county commissioners, the jail trust and two former officers.
Baby Shark and popular music in general has a long history of being used as a “device to torment”, said the Oklahoma lawsuit. In 2019, Florida officials played Baby Shark on loop to prevent homeless people from sleeping or setting up camp in parks. At Guantánamo Bay, interrogators notably blasted heavy metal music at high volumes to torture detainees.
In Oklahoma, Daniel Hedrick, a plaintiff in the suit, was taken from his cell and into an attorney visitation room, where two officers played the song on loop, forcing Hendricks to stand for more than an hour.
Joseph Mitchell, another plaintiff in the suit, was escorted to an empty room on 30 November 2019, where he was handcuffed behind his back, restrained to the wall, and also forced to listen to Baby Shark while standing for three to four hours.
Another plaintiff, John Basco, endured similar conditions: isolated, restrained and forced to listen to the song for nearly two hours.
“The volume of the song was so loud that it was reverberating down the hallways,” noted the lawsuit.
Ja’Lee Foreman Jr, the fourth plaintiff and former detainee, was not forced to listen to the children’s song, but was subject to verbal and physical assault by jail officers, one who vowed to make Foreman’s life “hell”.
The lawsuit noted that the men “posed no threat to the officers or anyone else”, were “compliant” and “not actively resisting any lawful command”.
After an investigation into these incidents last year by Oklahoma’s district attorney’s office, the two former jail employees as well as their supervisor were charged with cruelty to a prisoner and conspiracy, according to the lawsuit.
In an interview with the Associated Press, former Oklahoma county sheriff PD Taylor said that officers Christian Charles Miles and Gregory Cornell Butler Jr, officials who allegedly initiated the torture, and Lt Christopher Raymond Hendershott, who the lawsuit says was aware “but took no action to intervene and stop the misconduct”, retired.
Miles and Butler have a history of mistreating detainees and both were the subjects of several complaints, the Oklahoma county district attorney, David Prater, confirmed, after an investigation.
Prater called the use of Baby Shark in the jail “cruel and inhumane”, saying it put “undue emotional stress on the detainees who were most likely already suffering”, according to the lawsuit.