EL DORADO, Kansas – The NAACP claims guards at El Dorado Correctional Facility badly beat a prisoner and now it’s asking the feds to investigate. State officials say guards did nothing wrong, but the inmate’s family says a videotape of the beating proves otherwise.
The inside of the El Dorado Correctional Facility is filled with some of the worst convicts in Kansas. It’s a scary and sometimes violent place. But one family, with the backing of the NAACP, says guards took things too far when subduing their son last month.
“He actually was afraid he'd be killed at one point -- he begged,” said Kevin Myles, Kansas State NAACP president.
“To see it was really hard, it was really painful,” said Samella Green, the inmate’s mother.
The NAACP as well as an inmate’s parents was allowed to see a videotape of the incident in question. They say the brutality begins when guards used the inmate’s head to push open a door and then he’s brought to a blind spot not covered by cameras.
Guards say the inmate tied to kick them, but the inmate alleges he was punched, kicked and Tased.
“So we see shadows in there, we see movement in there, you can see shadows against the wall, but you can’t actually see what’s going on in there,” said Green.
“To assert somehow he gained the presence of mind to mount an unsuccessful attack, which coincidentally happened to take place in a tiny four-foot blind spot from the cameras, stretches the imagination,” said Myles.
Because the Department of Justice has been contacted and because there may now be an investigation, the Department of Corrections will not let KSN see a copy of the videotape, but they insist that correctional officers in El Dorado did nothing wrong.
“There was no excessive use of force in this incident, there were no abusive actions taken, there was certainly nothing in the way of torture as has been alleged,” Bill Miskell, spokesperson with the Kansas Department of Corrections.
The NAACP and the inmate’s family disagree and want the Justice Department to sort out who’s telling the truth.
This is the first time under the Obama Administration that the Kansas Chapter of the NAACP has asked the Department of Justice to investigate prisoner abuse.
