Multiple Lawsuits, High Visibility Incidents Rock Sheriff's Office
Lawyers Also File Suit Against Portland Police

Numerous Sheriff's Deputies came under scrutiny for violent and other inappropriate behavior in recent months. Alarmingly, corrections officer David B. Thompson used an internet-based game to brag about breaking an inmate's eye socket and express his enthusiasm for using a Taser to shock inmates with 50,000 volts of electricity. "Seeing someone get TASER'd is second only to being the guy pulling the trigger... That is money, puts a smile on your face" (Portland Tribune, September 7). The injured inmate, David Michael Baker, says Thompson came into his cell and started beating him, then Thompson charged Baker with menacing and assault. Thompson wrote, "I crushed a dude's eye socket from repeatedly punching him in it... He took a plea to get away from me. He shoulda picked somebody else to try and fight." After the Tribune broke the story, Thompson was transferred away from inmates and taken off of Taser training duties (Tribune, September 18).

Lawyers Benjamin Haile and Leah Greenwald have been busy filing lawsuits on behalf of people injured by the Sheriff's Deputies. In September, they held a news conference on behalf of Frank Coleman and Mitchell Elliot, both of whom say they were beaten in the intake area (Tribune, September 25) and Michael Evans, whose beating was caught on a booking area video camera. Evans' case was also reviewed by the FBI, with results due any time (Portland Mercury , September 27). The next month, Evans was attacked by a fellow inmate, Eric Nash, apparently at the direction of deputies who told Nash that Evans was a "child molester." Nash drove a pencil two inches into Evans' left eye socket (Mercury, October 25).

Also:

--Clatsop County Sheriff's Deputy Robert Gordon Smith resigned in October after charges came out that he had inappropriate contact with a high school student (Oregonian, October 23)

--Clackamas County Deputies Donald Mainero and Bryan Lavigne were arrested in August, Maniero for "having sex with a teenage cadet" and Lavigne for "excessive force on a juvenile suspect" (Willamette Week, August 22).

--Former Multnomah Deputy Alexander Weise pleaded no contest to official misconduct for his "romantic" involvement with an inmate (PPR #41); he received one year of probation; Erich Watson, who possessed cocaine, smuggled contraband to and kissed an inmate, received 18 months' probation (Oregonian, August 15).