‘Hurt Him’
GUARD’S HANDLING OF PROBLEM INMATE SPARKS COMPLAINTS FROM MDC MEDICAL STAFF
Jail Sgt. Eric Allen gave the order repeatedly: “Hurt him.” Correctional officers responded by twisting inmate Joe Ray Barela’s handcuffed wrist as he screamed in pain. The officers described it as “pain compliance” needed to control a belligerent prisoner with a long rap sheet and a history of violence. But it horrified medical staffers who were trying to assess and treat Barela in the emergency room at the Bernalillo County jail, according to county documents released in response to a Journal request for public records. One nurse called it torture. Two employees were in tears. “They won’t stop hurting him,” one counselor told a colleague. And the orders to “hurt” Barela, they said, interfered with their attempts to assess his medical condition. They told sheriff’s detectives and a private investigator for the county that they think officers used excessive force on Barela and that the incident fueled tension between medical staff and corrections officers inside the massive jail. Some medical staffers also said correctional officers tried to intimidate them after the incident. Their accounts of what happened to Barela on Dec. 18 are outlined in reports prepared by sheriff’s detectives and a private
‘This guy is a decade-long troublemaker’ – LT. STEPHEN PERKINS, ON INMATE JOE RAY BARELA
investigator for the county Human Resources Department. The officers saw the incident much differently. No one used excessive force, they said, and their actions were simply intended to keep everyone safe from an inmate with a history of violence. Barela, 39 at the time, has been booked 30 times and was being held on charges that included aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, according to a jail report. “This guy is a decade-long troublemaker in any facility,” jail Lt. Stephen Perkins, head of the correctional officers’ union, said in a Journal interview. “This guy is a problem child.” Whatever happened, the incident highlights tension between correctional officers and medical personnel inside the Metropolitan Detention Center, one of the 50 largest jails in the country. Allen acknowledged telling “the civilian staff to keep their opinions and noses out of his and security staff’s business,” the private investigator, Doug Shawn, a retired Albuquerque police officer, wrote in his report.
The video
Allen — a jail sergeant and vice president of the union that represents correctional officers at the Metropolitan Detention Center — has been on paid leave since January in connection with the Barela incident, union and county officials say. The county also investigated allegations against him in a separate case, where he was shown on camera directing another officer to twist the wrist of an inmate who wouldn’t stop crying. Video of that incident — involving inmate Susie Chavez in September of last year — triggered a local protest and grabbed national attention. “Twist her wrist until she shuts up and stops crying,” Allen says on that video, which was taken by a body camera he wore. The Barela case lacks such clear video. But sheriff’s deputies say a security camera did capture footage of Allen kneeling over Barela in a hallway, at one point, on Dec. 18. “Barela is seen in obvious pain, kicking his legs as if someone is hurting him,” one detective’s report said. “Barela is also restrained with handcuffs behind his back.” Correctional officers said Barela would often stop walking and fall to the ground during his escort to and from the medical unit. “Pain compliance” was used to get him to stand up and walk again, they said. They were taking Barela to the jail infirmary after officers sprayed him with an inflammatory agent earlier in the day when he refused to put on his jail uniform and wouldn’t follow directions, according to the county documents.
Inmate with a history
Allen wouldn’t speak with sheriff’s detectives investigating the incident. But he told the private investigator that Barela is a prison gang member with a history of disruption, assault on staff and disregard for institutional rules. Barela is normally in a state prison, but he is transferred to the county jail occasionally for court hearings. Allen said he told officers to apply a “wrist lock” to Barela only when the inmate was out of line, disruptive or refusing to be examined by medical staff, not to interfere with a nurse’s work, according to county documents. Barela had been warned repeatedly ahead of time that he had to follow jail rules. Sometimes, Allen said, he applied the pain himself, such as when Barela wouldn’t cooperate or yelled profanity. At one point, he used a large key ring to dig into Barela’s neck, he said, according to the private investigator. Allen said he also thinks he used his thumbs and knuckles on pressure points in Barela’s ear and jaw area, at one point. Everything he did was permitted under county policies, Allen said, that allow the use of force to maintain control of prisoners. Other corrections officers backed up Allen’s assessment of what happened. One disputed that Allen had even used the words “hurt him.” Correctional officer John Martinez, for example, told sheriff’s detectives that Allen “handled everything fine, that he is there to make sure the correctional officers are OK and don’t get hurt.” Martinez also said “he didn’t think it was right for someone to comment on how COs do their jobs, referring to the medical staff at MDC,” according to a detective’s report.
‘Intimidated’
The medical staff, in turn, complained about officers’ treatment of Barela. Ed Kossmann, health services administrator for Correct Care Solutions, which provides health care in the jail, told jail executives that some employees believe they work in a “hostile and unsafe environment, ironically with the security staff (Sgt. Allen and his cohort of four to five COs) and not the inmates.” Kossman sent the county a message from a nurse who reported that an officer had shoved her when she tried, out of concern for the inmate, to follow the correctional officers and Barela into a shower area. The officer, for his part, said he merely held out his hand because women aren’t allowed into an area where men shower and that it wouldn’t be safe for her to be with Barela when he’s unrestrained. Some medical staffers also said they believe Allen and others wanted them to keep quiet. The incident ended when a higherranking jail officer arrived and escorted Barela away from the medical unit, a nurse told sheriff’s deputies. The captain “told Sgt. Allen to pick Barela up from the floor, which Sgt. Allen refused, telling the captain that if his services are no longer needed, he and his COs would leave,” nurse Dawn Janz told detectives, according to their report. Kossman told sheriff’s detectives that “the medical staff voiced concerns to him about being intimidated by Sgt. Allen and also feared retaliation from him if they came forward in reference to this incident,” according to the county documents. Perkins, in a Journal interview, said officers are simply trying to keep everyone safe. Some medical staffers, he said, don’t seem to realize they’re “working in a correctional facility and not in a hospital. … Everybody wants to be a social worker.”
Prosecution?
What happens next isn’t clear. Sheriff’s detectives said they sent their report to the District Attorney’s Office in April “for consideration of prosecution,” according to county records. Their report said the “temple area is not an approved pressure point region” for use on a suspect, based on the defensive-tactics curriculum they reviewed. They also said officers aren’t taught to use a key on a pressure point. A spokeswoman for the District Attorney’s Office said she couldn’t find any investigative report or case against Allen or other correctional officers. A sheriff’s spokeswoman, meanwhile, said the case is still under investigation. Allen remains on paid leave and hasn’t faced administrative discipline in connection with the incident, jail spokeswoman Nataura Powdrell-Moore told the Journal. Three other officers involved in the incident are on active duty at the jail and weren’t disciplined, she said. Jail officers, civilian staff and medical employees are being trained on a new use-of-force policy, Powdrell-Moore said.