Lawsuit says Spokane County juvenile detention staff broke handcuffed teen’s leg

A lawsuit alleges employees of Spokane County’s Juvenile Detention Center slammed a handcuffed teenager to the floor, breaking his leg below the knee and causing his head to hit the concrete.

The incident took place on Dec. 19 in the booking area of the juvenile jail after the boy was arrested on suspicion of underage drinking near a friend’s house in Spokane Valley. It was his 15th birthday, said Derek Reid, an attorney for the family.

While the boy was “assertive” in his refusal to speak without an attorney or his parents present, he posed no threat to himself or others, and jail staff had no reason to use physical force against him, Reid said.

The boy’s hands were cuffed behind his back when a correctional officer and two other staff members took him to the ground, according to the lawsuit.

Reid said both the tibia and fibula in the boy’s left leg were fractured and have not healed properly, meaning doctors will have to break the bones again and reset them. He noted the boy stood about 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighed about 125 pounds.

“To me, the truth of the matter is that there is no world in which a handcuffed 15-year-old needs to be taken to the ground by grown adults,” Reid said. “The punishment for drinking on your 15th birthday is not walking with a limp for the rest of your life.”

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Spokane and seeks unspecified damages for claims of negligence, civil rights violations and inadequate training of jail staff. The Spokesman-Review is not naming the boy or his family because he is a minor.

County spokesman Jared Webley said Friday officials couldn’t comment on pending litigation.

The Juvenile Detention Center is a 39-bed facility on the county’s West Central Neighborhood campus that includes the adult jail and courthouses. The facility holds minors before and after sentencing who are deemed dangerous to themselves or others, or unlikely to show up for court hearings.

Reid said reports written by the correctional officer and other employees offer various descriptions of the Dec. 19 incident, with one suggesting the boy “slipped and fell” and another suggesting the officer fell on the boy’s leg.

He said reports written the day of the incident describe little, if any, physical resistance from the boy, but at least one later report indicates he was “thrashing” to avoid being escorted to a holding cell.

Reid said the booking area is monitored in real time via surveillance cameras, but they do not record video.

According to the lawsuit, the boy only moved his arm away when the officer tried to “jerk” him into a standing position.

“He was cuffed and seated, and they went to get him up to take him to the holding cell,” Reid said. “And in that time, he pulled his arm away, or he didn’t respond to their forcing him towards the holding cell. And one of the officers said, ‘Take him down.’ “

Because he was unable to break his fall, the boy’s head “violently bounced off the concrete floor,” the lawsuit states. He “cried, begged and pleaded” for the jail employees to get off of him, then “passed out due to the extreme pain,” it states.

An ambulance rushed the boy to a hospital, where he underwent surgery. According to the lawsuit, the county notified his mother he was en route to the hospital but did not immediately allow her to visit him, saying he was in custody. Then officials dropped the case against her son.

“Once they dismissed the charges, they allowed her to go to the hospital,” Reid said.

Reid said police contacted the boy for possessing alcohol a few months prior to the Dec. 19 incident, but he was not held in the detention center at that time. The boy had no record of violence, he said.