El Paso County Sheriff’s Office addresses ‘use of force’ cases

On Monday, the El Paso County Sheriff’s office commented on recent allegations that there is a “trend” of excessive force cases by the department.

This comes on the heels of a large settlement from last week when the county awarded $675,000 to a woman who was injured during an encounter with deputies at the jail in 2014.

In the lawsuit, it details how Phillippa McCully was arrested for erratic driving in 2014.

When she was booked into jail, she experienced “brutal treatment” when four deputies slammed her to the ground in a cell, according to the lawsuit. McCully fractured her knee, tore her ACL and PCL, and she suffered trauma to her face, head, and upper body.

The lawsuit paperwork also goes on to detail other cases, where the county awarded hefty settlements for excessive use of force, claiming it was a trend of the sheriff’s office.

Administrators at the sheriff’s office say while there are exceptions, most of the incidents of use of force were “reasonable and necessary.”

“Anytime an officer uses force — from handcuffing someone to placing someone in a restraint chair, to illuminating a taser, to drawing a weapon — they have to fill out a use of force report,” said El Paso County Undersheriff Joe Breister.

However, the lawsuit and investigation also sparked interest in the use-of-force practices at the jail and uncovered alarming details about deputies who worked there at that time.

The sheriff’s office confirmed inappropriate behavior from several deputies who worked at the jail. From 2012 to 2016, a group of deputies was accessing the numbers recorded for their own use-of-force files. They then compared their numbers to other deputies and had unofficial “awards” for the deputies who had the highest number of use of force incidents for the year.

“It morphed into, for the lack of a better term, a contest, into who had the most,” said Breister.

Breister said the inappropriate contest came to light when McCully’s lawsuit was filed, and administrators immediately opened an investigation.

The contest was stopped. Breister says that kind of behavior is unacceptable for employees.

Breister also insisted that the contest did not spur more use of force encounters, but was simply taking existing data and using it for humor.

Administrators say it was nothing more than a bad judgment call for these deputies.

“It looks extremely bad, and we are very cognizant of that. We aren’t trying to hide from it, we are embarrassed by it because we don’t condone it, nor would we ever condone a practice like that,” said Breister.

Since these incidents, the sheriff’s office says it has stepped up training and education for deputies to handle these situations better.

Looking purely at statistics, it can also be hard to interpret the use of force incidents in the county.

Looking at 2016, the sheriff’s office documented 1,117 use of force incidents. In 2017, the department logged 2,780 incidents.

While those numbers might seem drastic from year to year, administrators say the way these incidents are reported changed, making the numbers appear higher.

In the past, the use-of-force cases were recorded as single incidents. Now, deputies each have to log a use of force report, instead of a single report altogether. So a single report before, might, today, be five reports if there were five deputies involved.

It is also important to note that all use of force cases are documented. An incident can be as minor as the use of handcuffs, or as major as a fatal shooting. If an officer ignited the charge of a Taser but does not deploy it, it is still considered a use of force incident.

The most significant aspect in these cases is what is solely the use of force, and what is excessive use of force.

In 2017, though there were 2,780 reports of use of force, only six warranted an investigation, and only four were upheld.

The sheriff’s office says since this case in 2014, it has stepped up training and protocols to better deal with situations like this.