By Bob Fowler
News Sentinel
CLINTON, Tenn. — It was a cruel combination of errors that left a Claxton community man with permanent scars, blurred vision and traumatic nightmares, an Anderson County judge was told Tuesday.
Arrested on a traffic violation — earlier dismissed but still mistakenly on the state’s books - Kenneth E. King was jailed overnight with violent felons.
But when the error was cleared up in Sessions Court the next morning and King was ordered released, he was instead returned to his jail cell, lawyers for King told Circuit Court Judge Don Elledge.
And that’s when King, 42, was brutally beaten in a shakedown by five inmates that left him with a broken jaw and nose and an injury to his right eye that’s permanent, according to testimony.
After the assault, jailers “told me I was free to go,” he testified.
His face swollen and bloody, “I couldn’t see the floor,” King testified.
“I asked to go to the hospital.”
After the incidents on Oct. 27-28, 2009, “my whole world was just devastated,” King said.
“The worst thing that you could imagine happening, happened to me.” King is suing Anderson County for $500,000.
His lawsuit claims deputies and jailers were negligent or “acted with deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm” to him.
King’s attorneys also contend the county erred when King was classified as a medium-security inmate and jailed with violent offenders.
Testimony in the bench trial before Elledge is expected to conclude today. King said he was stopped by Deputy Charles Faircloth because he didn’t have his vehicle headlights on while it was raining.
When a state records check by the deputy mistakenly showed he was driving on a suspended license, King said Faircloth arrested him.
“I pleaded with the man he must be making a mistake,” King testified.
Expert witness Robert Powell, retired director of Kentucky jail inspectors, testified that his review of the case showed that jailers hadn’t followed any of the county’s policies for classifying and housing inmates.
He called King a “textbook minimum-security” prisoner.
The county’s attorney, Jonathan Taylor, is expected to present his defense today. Taylor contends prisoner classification standards in Tennessee are minimal, and King never griped about his cell mates before their attack.
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