John Jefferson
Inset: Jarius Brown (ACLU Foundation of Louisiana). Background: Brown in custody (KSLA).
A Louisiana sheriff’s deputy who admitted to beating a detainee in a jailhouse laundry room after ordering him to strip naked, bend over, and cough during the booking process has learned his fate.
Javarrea Pouncy, 31, a former sergeant with the DeSoto Parish Sheriff’s Office, was sentenced on Tuesday to 37 months in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a press release. He pleaded guilty in April to a count of using excessive force against the detainee. A second deputy involved in the assault, DeMarkes Grant, previously pleaded guilty to one count of obstructing justice and was sentenced to 10 months in prison.
“The defendant pledged to protect and serve his community, but instead, he repeatedly punched a detainee without justification, leaving him bloodied and broken,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “People in detention have the right to be treated humanely and not to be brutalized by excessive force. This sentence sends a clear message that we will not tolerate such abuses behind bars. The Justice Department will hold accountable officials who violate detainees’ civil rights.”
U.S. Attorney Brandon B. Brown for the Western District of Louisiana said Pouncy took advantage of his position.
“Decency and order can co-exist with the preservation of an offender’s civil rights,” Brown said. “Prosecutions such as these are critical to ensure that the good work of law enforcement officers is not hampered by the heinous acts of bad law enforcement officers.”
The violence happened on Sept. 27, 2019, in DeSoto Parish in northwest Louisiana, near the border of Texas.
The detainee, Jarius Brown, was pulled over and taken into custody for nonviolent traffic offenses. At the DeSoto Parish Jail, Pouncy and Grant ordered Brown to disrobe for a strip search as part of the booking process, authorities said.
“When Mr. Brown arrived in the laundry room, officer defendants instructed him to strip naked, bend over, and cough,” according to court documents in a lawsuit Brown later filed.
Brown complied.
After Brown took off his clothes, the deputies instructed him to squat, but “the squats did not fully comply with the officers’ directions,” court documents said.
The deputies punched him in the head, face, and stomach, delivering a total of 50 punches. Grant had set aside his training and entered “fight mode,” his plea agreement said.
Brown collapsed, and the deputies delivered one final blow to Brown’s body before ceasing, the lawsuit said. Brown was “left bloody and with fractures to his face and eye socket,” according to the lawsuit.
Afterward, the deputies gave Brown a prison jumpsuit and led him to a holding cell where he remained in isolation — bloody, beaten and struggling to remain conscious.
Forty minutes later, the warden noticed his injuries and called paramedics to take him to a hospital.
There, Brown struggled to remain conscious.
“Mr. Brown also experienced mental and emotional trauma from the beating,” court documents said. “He still carries those injuries with him today and remains anxious and uneasy in the presence of law enforcement.”
In his report, Grant minimized the severity of the uses of force and omitted the fact that the use of force had been unjustified and unreasonable, court documents said.
The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division launched an investigation into the attack, and Pouncy and Grant were ultimately indicted.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana and a private law firm took up Brown’s civil rights case, seeking justice for people of color and challenging Louisiana’s one-year statute of limitations for filing so-called Section 1983 lawsuits, or civil rights lawsuits against government actors, such as police, the ACLU said.
“Mr. Brown is one of the countless Black men who have been unjustly brutalized by law enforcement in Louisiana,” the ACLU said. “By bringing this case, Mr. Brown seeks to hold the DeSoto Parish deputies accountable for their violation of citizens’ rights under the U.S. Constitution and Louisiana state laws.”
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