Man says handicap disregarded
By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch
Times-Picayune
NEW ORLEANS — A handicapped former inmate is suing the St. Tammany Parish jail and some of its staff, alleging that they improperly addressed his handicap during a stay at the jail in 2007.
Herbert Spruell, who has a prosthetic right leg, contends that he suffered lower back injuries and infections because the jail staff did not provide him with a handicapped-accessible cell and, by assigning him a top-bunk bed, heightened the risks from his handicap.
Spruell was in the jail in Covington between May 5 and July 11, 2007, on charges of possession of cocaine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
Charles Hughes, the attorney for the Sheriff’s Office, said Thursday that Spruell had been a homeless drug addict and alcoholic who came into the jail already in extremely poor health. He said the prosthetic Spruell was using when he arrived at the jail didn’t fit properly and that it was “filthy” and had caused “open wounds on his stump, multiple abrasions and sores.”
Spruell filed his suit without an attorney. He currently is an inmate in Allen Correctional Center in Kinder, where he is serving a three-year sentence after pleading guilty to the cocaine and marijuana possession charges.
His suit contends he fell from his bunk while attempting to use a table to get down, and that he later slipped in the shower after not receiving a shower chair he requested.
Hughes said there is no record that Spruell ever fell from his bunk and that “the only thing we can document is an unsubstantiated claim that he fell in the shower.”
“And the first day he requested a bottom bunk, he was assigned one,” Hughes said.
He said Spruell’s suit is frivolous and that he will ask a judge to throw it out of court.
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Benjamin Alexander-Bloch can be reached at bbloch@timespicayune.com or 985.898.4827.
Copyright 2008 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company