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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
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Deputies Pushed Him Down A 35-Foot|Elevator Shaft, Paralyzed Man Says

DAYTON, OHIO (CN) - After pepper-spraying, handcuffing and beating a jail detainee, Clark County Sheriff's deputies smashed him into an elevator door with such force that it gave way and he fell 35 feet down the shaft, breaking his spine and permanently paralyzing him, the man claims in Federal Court. "Let's open it with his face," one deputy said before he and another deputy did that, says Thomas Peck II.

Peck says the assault began because he objected to being given a liquid meal, after his doctor had said he could eat solid food again. Peck says he was permanently paralyzed in the May 23 assault on the third floor of the jail, which ended with him lying in an agonized, broken heap on the bottom of the elevator shaft.

While he was disabled from being pepper-sprayed in the eyes, and with his hands cuffed behind his back, Peck says, defendant Deputy Travis Russell said, "Let's open it (the elevator door) with his face." Russell and Deputy Bryan Beller "lifted Plaintiff off the ground and slammed him into the elevator door. The elevator door gave way and Plaintiff entered the hoistway feet first and fell 34 feet 9 inches into the pit below," the complaint states.He demands punitive damages for negligence, battery and constitutional violations. His lead counsel is John Marshall with Marshall & Marshall and Dale Perdue with Clark, Perdue & List, all of Columbus.

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