By Robin Fornoff
Clovis News Journal
CLOVIS, N.M. — A sheriff’s investigation has cleared two Curry County detention officers from wrongdoing after they kneed an inmate four times during a takedown last November, breaking the man’s ribs.
The inmate, Edward Saldana, 21, of Clovis, was treated for fractured ribs and a collapsed lung at Plains Regional Medical Center hours after the takedown because he initially refused medical treatment, according to a sheriff’s investigator.
Details of the incident were discovered in documents obtained through state Inspection of Public Records Act requests filed by the Clovis News Journal in recent weeks.
The sheriff’s investigation details Nov. 13, 2013, as a violent day. Jail staff and inmates also clashed in separate incidents about two hours before the Saldana takedown, according to the documents.
According to the sheriff’s report:
• Inmate Ray Gomez, 41, was jolted with an electronic Taser three or four times after punching one detention officer and head-butting another.
Gomez was treated by jail medical staff for minor injuries. He was charged three months later with three counts of felony battery against a peace officer and released on $5,000 bond.
• About 10 minutes after the confrontation with Gomez, Robert Baker, 39, was pepper-balled — shot with a projectile fired from a gun that releases a powder spray of capsaicin II, a powerful irritant obtained from hot peppers — after refusing to stop kicking his cell door. Baker was a cell neighbor to Gomez and was kicking his door because he was “upset about the incident with Inmate Gomez and felt he had been mistreated,” the report notes.
The Saldana takedown began with him tossing his food out of his cell and onto the floor, sheriff’s investigators said. Saldana was cuffed and removed from the cell while two officers cleaned it.
Saldana is accused of trying to attack detention officers after he was escorted back into the cell.
Sandoval said he lunged at detention officers with fist raised and clenched in a threatening manner.
The sheriff’s investigator noted after he was uncuffed and as officers were trying to leave his cell “Saldana stands up, turns around and approaches … with clenched fists.”
The report notes Saldana was given at least two orders to back down and didn’t. The investigator said Saldana then turned and grabbed the top rails of his bunk to avoid being cuffed.
Four officers struggled with Saldana, finally forcing his hands free of the rail and kicking his feet out from under him, according to the report.
“Saldana went to the ground but would not allow officers to place hand restraints on him by holding his arms under him and remaining rigid,” the report said.
The first officer to strike Saldana told investigators “While in the kneeling position I delivered two knee strikes to his (Saldana’s) left torso in an attempt to gain pain compliance, while giving verbal commands.”
Saldana complied and was cuffed, according to reports. Minutes later, however, Saldana was kneed twice in the same area of his rib cage again by another officer when he struggled with officers, who had escorted him to a different cell and were trying to remove his handcuffs.
Saldana complained of pain but repeatedly refused medical treatment, saying “I don’t want anyone to touch me,” the report said. Several hours later in the evening Saldana said he was in severe pain and needed medical help, the report said, and was taken to the hospital.
Repeated efforts to contact Saldana, who has since been released, for comment weren’t successful. Saldana did file a claim against the county seeking unspecified damages and the claim remains unresolved.
Jail Administrator Tori Sandoval and County Manager Lance Pyle said the threat of pending litigation by Saldana prevented them from discussing the case.
The sheriff’s investigator concluded he believed all of the officers involved followed policy and didn’t use excessive force to subdue Saldana. He noted, however, that knee strikes, while appropriate, are usually preferably dealt to the legs of an inmate resisting officers.
“I would also recommend there be refresher training on how, when and where the different types of strikes are applied,” the investigator wrote.
Sandoval said knee strikes to the legs of a resisting inmate are the preferred tactic.
“You have to realize in a situation like this, the inmate’s not just standing there,” Sandoval said. “He came at one of our officers in a threatening manner.”