Dismissal of brutality suit appealed

The recent dismissal of a federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU last July alleging brutality by Henderson jail employees is being appealed.

Lisa Ellen Gager filed the lawsuit against Henderson Police alleging she was unnecessarily pepper sprayed, beaten and improperly strip-searched on Feb. 13, 1996, while being held at the Henderson Detention Center.

Gager's lawsuit also alleged that detention center employees subsequently attempted to cover up the incident that occurred following her arrest on a child abuse charge that was later dismissed.

The lawsuit, filed by attorney Cal Potter, sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages in excess of $100,000.

But U.S. District Court Judge David Hagen last month agreed with U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Hunt's recommendation that the city's motion to dismiss the case be granted because the claim was filed outside of the two-year statute of limitations.

Potter said he recently filed an appeal of the federal court decision on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union because the statute of limitations should be based on the alleged cover-up, not the incident.

Gager didn't complain about the incident at the time and it didn't surface until former jail employee Jack Goslin released a copied videotape of the incident to a local television station.

"Her whole argument was that no one would believe her in the absence of the video," Potter said. "We think they should not benefit from their cover-up. Until the whistle-blower surfaced with the tape, no one would believe her."

The ACLU lawsuit goes beyond Gager's case, alleging Henderson Police have an officially sanctioned policy that allows prisoners to be "unnecessarily assaulted, battered, beaten, humiliated, violated, summarily punished by excessive force and otherwise deprived of their civil and constitutional rights."

Henderson Police Chief Tommy Burns at the time said that it had been established that the officers acted properly.

Burns said the term "strip-search" was inaccurate. He described what happened as Gager's unwillingness to change voluntarily from civilian clothes to a jail uniform before being moved from a holding cell.

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