201 Poplar inmate allegedly beaten by since-indicted officers files $500k lawsuit

A man detained pretrial at the Shelby County Jail at 201 Poplar, who was allegedly assaulted by corrections officers while handcuffed in a medical room, has sued the county, and a number of jail personnel, for a minimum of $500,000 in damages.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court Monday night, comes about six months after Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner and District Attorney Steve Mulroy announced that two deputies — Reginald Wilkins, a 16-year veteran of the department, and Odell Underwood, a 25-year veteran of the department — had been indicted in the alleged beating.

That November press conference was the first mention of the incident publicly.

“This case concerns the reckless, even deliberately indifferent, conduct of the personnel at the Shelby County Men’s Jail, who at best stood idly by, and at worst directed and helped facilitate, the common-law assault and battery of plaintiff Damien Florez-Ramirez, a pretrial detainee, by two members of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office’s black-uniformed detention response team,” the legal filing states.

The lawsuit goes on to say that Shelby County government was “negligent” in hiring, training and retaining Underwood and Wilkins as corrections officers. The two corrections officers face felony official oppression, felony official misconduct and simple assault charges.

Florez-Ramirez, the inmate who was allegedly beaten, has retained Sara McKinney and Jake Brown — who have litigated a number of cases against the county over the jail conditions.

What happened to Damien Florez-Ramirez at 201 Poplar?

According to the lawsuit, Florez-Ramirez was taken to the medical wing of 201 Poplar after getting in a fight with corrections officers. The lawsuit said he threw a chair and punched a corrections officer, identified as Sgt. Kendal Davis. Davis, the lawsuit said, then tackled and "repeatedly punched Florez-Ramirez." The lawsuit also said the inmate was sprayed with Freeze +P, an oil-based chemical irritant.

At 1:51 p.m., on May 20, 2023, the lawsuit said Florez-Ramirez was taken to the medical wing at 201 Poplar. He had "no visible injuries" when he went into medical exam room 213 for treatment.

The lawsuit also said there were no cameras in the medical exam rooms, and at the time the indictment was announced, Shelby County Deputy District Attorney Paul Hagerman told reporters that there was no footage of the actual assault, but cameras outside the room captured "critical, corroborative evidence as far as the actual assault."

More: Attorney for inmate in latest Shelby County jail indictment outlines new beating details

At 1:54 p.m., the lawsuit alleged Underwood and Wilkins entered medical room 213 — where Florez-Ramirez was laying on an exam bed with his hands handcuffed behind his back — and then "threatened" the inmate with physical harm.

After the two left room 213, a nurse walked in and examined the inmate. She said, according to the lawsuit, that Florez-Ramirez had his "hands cuffed behind him, and no visible injuries, for the entire time she remained in room 213 with him." She also said she did not remember the "distinct odor" of the chemical irritant when she first examined him, and the room was not in disarray.

When the nurse cleared him to be returned to his cell, Wilkins took his wristwatch off and gave it to a sergeant.

"Upon general information and belief, Sergeant Tamiko Swain knew Wilkins took off his wristwatch in anticipation of physically attacking Florez-Ramirez," the lawsuit said. "She did nothing to stop that from happening."

At 1:58 p.m., after a lieutenant cleared corrections officers from the hallway, Underwood and Wilkins went back into the room. The lieutenant, the lawsuit said, seemed to be standing guard outside the exam room.

“The timing of the lieutenant’s dispersal order – just prior to the assault and battery – and the fact that the lieutenant remained directly outside room 213 while it happened, support the plausible inference that the lieutenant helped facilitate the assault and battery – first by dispersing other personnel, then by standing watch,” the lawsuit alleged. “At the very least, the lieutenant would have heard everything happening inside room 213. He would do nothing to intervene.”

For about six minutes, the two corrections officers were alleged to have sprayed chemical irritants at Florez-Ramirez, kicked him and punched him with "handcuffs used as brass knuckles."

“Wilkins first struck Florez-Ramirez under the right eye,” the lawsuit said. “That blow knocked Florez-Ramirez — still in handcuffs — from the medical examination table to the floor, where the blackshirts repeatedly kicked and struck him. Underwood and Wilkins repeatedly kicked Florez-Ramirez in the face and torso while shouting, ‘Get up, (b****)!’ Florez-Ramirez could not get up because he was trying to protect his head — difficult to do with his hands cuffed behind his back — while the two blakshirts continued to stomp him. The two blackshirts also struck Florez-Ramirez more than ten times in the head with their fists, handcuffs (used as brass knuckles) and metal Freeze +P canisters. The blows from the metal implements left permanent divots in the bony parts of Florez-Ramirez’s forehead and left and right orbitals.”

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When a nurse was asked to look at Florez-Ramirez by the officers, “the chemical agent hung so thickly in the air that she could not breathe,” and moved him to a neighboring room.

“Inside room 212, Florez-Ramirez told nurse (Ashlyn) Cunningham what the blackshirts did to him and pleaded for help,” the lawsuit said. “He also asked her to take pictures and document his injuries. She did not. Instead, nurse Cunningham pretended not to notice the young man’s condition. She refused to report what Florez-Ramirez told her to jail administration, accurately document the facial injuries or summon other medical staff for help. She slapped a band-aid on the gash above Florez-Ramirez’s right eye, then left him to the blackshirts while she went about her other work.”

The corrections officers then took Florez-Ramirez to an administrative segregation unit, and took, him to a room where inmates change clothes on the way to the unit. They told a corrections officer stationed there that they needed to search the inmate. There were no cameras inside the room, the lawsuit said.

Inside the changing room, the lawsuit said, officers assaulted him again.

Other officers told investigators that they saw Florez-Ramirez going “in and out” of consciousness, and heard him repeating “I’m hurting. I’m hurting,” the lawsuit said, after he was taken from the changing room to an administrative segregation cells.

By 2:19 p.m., the lawsuit said Florez-Ramirez lost consciousness in an administrative segregation cell. At about that same time, the lawsuit said that nurses found room 213, where the inmate was allegedly beaten, in disarray. The lawsuit said the nurses said there were medical instruments knocked from the wall to the floor and “recalled ‘a moderate or concerning amount of blood’ pooled ‘on the floor on both sides of the exam table.’”

At 2:44 p.m., Florez-Ramirez was taken from the jail to an ambulance. He was then taken to Regional One Health, where the lawsuit said: “he received treatment for a concussion, facial lacerations and blunt-force trauma to the head.”

The lawsuit also lists four other inmates who have alleged corrections officers used violence on inmates as punishment, asserting that this establishes a “pattern of correctional staff maliciously and sadistically inflicting violence on inmates, usually pretrial detainees, for the purpose of punishment after the fact.”

Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com, or (901)208-3922, and followed on X, formerly known as Twitter, @LucasFinton.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Shelby County Jail inmate files $500k lawsuit after alleged beating