Mr. Extraction: Past Li(v)es of Joseph Garcia

Screenshot from At the Flagler County Jail, Training for Uncooperative Inmates and Lawsuit Deterrence

In 2014 the New York Times ran a story on cell extractions. Cell extractions are "the forcible removal of a prisoner from a cell by a tactical team armed with less-lethal weapons," and they are perhaps even more violent than that description suggests. Video recordings of extractions are nauseating-- teams of 5+ corrections officers suited up in SWAT-style gear charge into the cell, attack the ostensibly noncompliant person with tasers and mace, then physically tackle and restrain them before removing them from the cell. They are a "controversial" procedure due to their tendency to result in serious injury or death. 

Frank Valdez was killed in a cell extraction at Florida State Prison in 1999. Charles Toll died in 2010 following a cell extraction at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Tennessee.   Natasha McKenna died in 2015 after a cell extraction in Fairfax County jail in Virginia. Paul Silva died in 2018 at the Men's Central Jail in San Diego, California during a cell extraction.

There are more names, too. There are always more names.

Mr. Joseph Garcia -- or Mr. Extraction if you like-- promises a better way. He was interviewed in the Times article above, criticizing the "traditional" approach to cell extractions:

In most jails and prisons, policies on the use of force specify in some detail how an extraction should unfold: An officer, for example, is assigned an inmate’s arm or leg and told to keep that limb under control. But once the team goes in, the reality often bears little resemblance to the paper directives, looking more like a barroom brawl than a tightly orchestrated exercise, said Joseph Garcia, a security consultant.

“It’s chaos,” Mr. Garcia said.

Never one to miss a chance at self-promotion, Garcia presents his approach as a safer alternative:

His own method, which has been adopted by some jails and prisons, uses only two officers, and they do not enter the cell. The officers use weapons like Tasers and 12-gauge shotguns that fire less-lethal ammunition to subdue an inmate, and then restrain him. The method is not free of controversy, but Mr. Garcia said that the mother of an inmate might prefer that her son receive a bad bruise on a leg or a Taser shock to having him suffer a broken bone, concussion or worse from a traditional extraction.

But I believe that Jamal Sutherland's mother might disagree. Sutherland, too, was killed in a cell extraction gone wrong-- only, the officers that killed him were using Garcia's methods.

"Not One Lawsuit"

At the September 2nd Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board meeting, Joseph Garcia claimed that his training had nothing to do with Jamal Sutherland's death. Further, he claimed that in the 10 years he trained Special Operations Group (SOG) officers at the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center (SACDC) the jail faced "not one excessive use of force complaint, not one lawsuit." 

That is a lie.

There is publicly available video of Garcia pepper spraying Lindsay Fickett, one of Sutherland's killers, as part of a SOG hazing ritual. It is beyond dispute that she was trained by Garcia.

It is also beyond dispute that SACDC was sued because of the actions of SOG operators multiple times between 2008 and 2018. In 2014 the jail was sued for excessive force in Meyer v Al Cannon. Lindsay Fickett was named as one of the defendants.  The suit alleged that "Jane Doe," a 110 lb young woman, was choked, placed in a restraint chair, and tased repeatedly while restrained. 

According to the complaint it was standard practice for SOG operators to delete video footage of their use of force encounters. The only reason that video exists of SOG operators torturing Jane Doe is because Fickett forgot to delete some of the video captured on her shoulder cam. 

Local media reported that the suit was settled for $137,500.

Meyer v Al Cannon (Jane Doe) by Allegheny JOB Watch

In the hopes of uncovering more SOG-related suits I submitted a FOIA request to the Charleston County Sheriff's Office, but apparently they do not track jail-related settlements. I was told I could find that information online on the Charleston County Clerk of Court website but unfortunately I have identified no easy way to locate such suits. (Although, here is your periodic reminder that I am not a lawyer and do not have any formal legal training).

I did, however, manage to find a federal suit filed against the Charleston County Detention Center in 2017 that mentions Garcia by name.

Reynolds v Charleston County by Allegheny JOB Watch on Scribd

The plaintiff, Nathanael Reynolds, reported that beginning December 14, 2015 a man called "Captain" Garcia began a 19-day training program for the jail's SOG. Reynolds alleges that he and other incarcerated men in the disciplinary sequestration  unit "were compelled to strip naked in front of several officers including female officers" to humiliate them sexually. One of those female officers was Lindsay Fickett. 

Reynolds also states that on one occasion Garcia and some SOG officers threw him into the shower against his will and threatened to taze him while he was on the floor of the shower room soaking wet. In the brief handwritten suit Reynolds refers to the training as "completely illegal and cruel" and "unconstitutional." He alleges that then-Sheriff Al Cannon and other high-ranking jail staff allowed the SOG team and Garcia to "tyrannize" incarcerated people. 

Four years later, following Sutherland's death, Sheriff Gary Raney investigated the SOG and came to a similar conclusion.

The Boston Incident

On October 21, 2004, the Red Sox beat the Yankees at Fenway Park to win that year's American League Championship. The resulting celebration outside of the stadium became too unruly for the tastes of the Boston Police department, who tried to disperse the revelers by firing into the crowd with FN 303 "less lethal" riot guns. One of them accidentally shot a 21-year-old college student named Victoria Snelgrove in the eye. Snelgrove died, and the a few years later the Boston Police Department stopped using FN 303s.

Victoria Snelgrove

On November 16, 2004, less than a month after Snelgrove's death, an article called "Lessons learned from Boston's FN303 incident" appeared on a corrections special interest website. 

The author has a very specific audience in mind: "[jail and prison] administrations who have raised the red flag" about the FN 303 and may be thinking of removing it from their arsenal. The author cautions against acting rashly and suggests that discontinuing its use would be "throw[ing] out the baby with the bath water." He casts blame for the entire incident on user error and suggests that correctional facilities in possession of these weapons should simply train with them more frequently. He insists that the FN 303 is an excellent tool in the right hands with the right practice. He goes so far as to "stake [his] reputation on this weapon's accuracy and effectiveness."

The author was "Senior Team Leader" Joseph Garcia.

Around the time of Snelgrove's death the Worcester County House of Corrections (WCHC) in West Boylston, Massachusetts hired Garcia to train a group of corrections officers to form a SOG. Garcia's business was using the name US Corrections Special Operations Group Corp. (US C-SOG) at this point, rather than CSAU, but his practices seem to have remained static for the past 15 years.  The only real difference I've noted is that Garcia now uses Kel-Tec shotguns and rifles. 

In 2006 (and likely earlier) US C-SOG was using FN 303s.

image of the FN 303 Launcher 

Campbell v. Glodis

I have often wondered over the past 7 weeks how exactly a Garcia-style cell extraction works when there is a "less lethal" gun involved. Again and again Garcia makes the claim that his kind of cell extraction requires only 2 officers and they never enter the cell; does that mean his method relies on the ability of someone who has just been maced and/or tased and/or shot to get up off the floor and walk out of their cell? A 2010 class-action lawsuit filed against WCHC helps fill in the blanks.

Campbell v Glodis by Allegheny JOB Watch

Worcester County Sheriff Guy Glodis was named as primary defendant in the suit, with the manufacturers of the FN 303 and Garcia's US C-SOG named as co-defendants. The twelve plaintiffs in the suit were each injured during a cell extraction at WCHC in February 2007, and eleven of the twelve were shot with an FN 303. 

The complaint describes the typical process of a cell extraction at the time:

• Pursuant to policies, practices and procedures adopted, implemented and maintained by Sheriff Glodis at all times pertinent hereto guard would and still do summon teams of specially trained and armed teams ("move teams") to remove, or extract, a recalcitrant inmate from his cell.
• At all times pertinent hereto a move team doing a cell extraction would and still does spray the offending inmate with OC, shoot him with the FN303 from distances as close as three (3) feet until- and on some occasions continuing after - he laid on the floor in submission. 
• Upon an inmate being subdued and cuffed the move team did and still does take him from general population to be strapped or chained to a metal bed in an isolated cell, sometimes being allowed to wash the spray off first and sometimes not.

So it's not that COs never enter the cell in Garcia's method; they just incapacitate the victim from a distance before entering. 

Martin Michelman Affadavid by Allegheny JOB Watch

The supplemental affidavit produced by law enforcement consultant Martin K. Michelman on the use of the FN 303 at WCHC is absolutely damning. Michelman dismisses the defendants's claims that use of the FN 303 resulted in decreased use of force rates, and takes particular umbrage with the jail's specious assertion that  there had not been "a single serious injury to an inmate as a result of a discharge or deployment of an FN 303." This, Michelman says, is simply not true. 

Conditions in WCHC were so bad in late 2006 that the Civil Rights division of the federal Department of Justice launched an investigation into the jail. When the DOJ team toured the facility in May 2007 they examined videos of the SOG team performing cell extractions and even in instances where the FN 303 riot gun was not used their practices "substantially departed from generally accepted practices" and "inmates were not adequately protected from serious harm."

For example, on January 10, 2007, a SOG team was called to remove inmates D.W. and T.G. from their cell because they reportedly were threatening to assault officers, disrupting the cellblock, and destroying their cell. The SOG team fired OC projectiles into the cell, striking both inmates. Thereafter, both D.W. and T.G. were handcuffed, placed in leg irons, escorted to A-2, and placed on adjacent restraint beds. No one attempted to ascertain whether the use of OC was contraindicated, and neither inmate was allowed to shower after being exposed to this chemical.

The DOJ investigation and Michelman affidavit are uncomfortably reminiscent of the Ninth Circuit Solicitor's Report and Raney Report, respectively. It's been 15 years since Garcia introduced the FN 303 to Worcester County's jail and what has changed? Same scam. Same tactics. Same Garcia.

15 years is long enough.

The Jail Oversight Board will be meeting again this coming Monday specifically to discuss Garcia and the C-SAU contract.

The meeting is at 5:30pm and will streamed live on Microsoft Teams. Please take a moment to submit a comment or question about the training-- we must show Warden Harper and County Executive Fitzgerald that we stand in solidarity with our community members trapped in ACJ.