LiveLeak.com
SACRAMENTO — Videotapes released Thursday by a federal court show mentally ill prisoners in California being forced from their cells by guards who douse them repeatedly with pepper spray.
Some of the inmates are being forced to comply with medication orders; others are to be moved to new cells.
The six tapes, created by guards abiding by a state policy to record all cell extractions, were shown in court in October as part of a lawsuit by inmates’ lawyers seeking a ban on the use of pepper spray against the mentally ill. The tapes were ordered released by U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton, who is holding hearings on the issue in Sacramento.
In one tape shot in July of last year at California State Prison at Corcoran, a screaming, naked prisoner is sprayed five times in 15 minutes before being tackled to the ground by about half a dozen guards and then strapped to a gurney.
His prison psychiatrist testified that the psychotic inmate had lost touch with reality and needed emergency medication.
Full story: Mentally ill prisoners forced from cells with pepper spray