The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is being sued by Lt. Erik Beam for abuse by correctional staff.
In the complaint, Beam says that he worked for the CDCR two decades, claiming that fellow officers burned him with department issued pepper spray, crushed his foot and demonstrated sexual assault.
Beam saying that these actions were a part of the culture within the prison called the “code of silence.”
In the claim, Beam names specific guards as well as the warden at Salinas Valley State Prison.
On his last day at Salinas Valley on June 21, prison staff gathered for a send-off party for Beam. The event culminated in several colleagues drenching Beam in pepper-spray laced water, his lawsuit alleges. After he returned to his office to clean up, several of Beam’s subordinates followed him and again doused him with contaminated water and attempted to handcuff him to a CDCR-owned wheelchair. The lawsuit alleges that several officers who participated in the harassment had the intent of leaving the lieutenant restrained to the wheelchair in the showers used by inmates. Beam resisted and his colleagues allegedly stomped on his foot repeatedly and grabbed his genitals to subdue him. The lawsuit alleges Beam’s subordinates successfully restrained him to a wheelchair and began wheeling him down a hallway past the offices of CDCR supervisors and inmates, which “created real and imminent fear” for the lieutenant.
The incident, captured on video, was shared with other CDCR employees, furthering Beam’s humiliation. The lawsuit claimed that the video of the assault “reinforced a culture where cruelty is normalized, dignity is disposable, and rules flouted.” In January, CDCR rejected Beam’s request seeking damages. The assault Beam suffered last year, in addition to the previous years of hazing, are reflective of a broader pattern of tolerating abusive behavior within California’s correctional system, he asserts in the complaint.
Rev Red