Jefferson County officials have agreed to pay a former inmate $500,000 to settle a 2022 incident in which jail surveillance video shows deputies drop the handcuffed man on his face.
On the night of Nov. 20, 2022, sheriff’s deputies at the Jefferson County jail were escorting then-53-year-old Fredrick Fisk, with his hands cuffed behind his back, to a medical observation unit because he was having a mental health episode, according to an incident report from the sheriff’s office.
In surveillance footage from the jail, Fisk can be seen stopping in the hallway and refusing to walk forward.
The video doesn’t have sound, but the incident report claims Fisk was verbally aggressive, threatening “to spit and saying he was going to kill all of them.”
After approximately two minutes of Fisk refusing to move, the video shows deputies grab Fisk’s legs and sweep them out from under him, slamming him face-first into the floor.
When deputies rolled Fisk onto his side, the video showed a pool of blood left behind on the floor where his face was.
In the incident report, the deputies blamed Fisk for the fall. They claimed they were trying to bring Fisk to his knees to wait for a wheelchair transport when he turned on them, causing him to fall.
In interviews after the incident, deputies and jail employees mentioned overhearing a deputy bragging about the incident. He was heard telling people he wasn’t “afraid to take a b**** down” and “that jujitsu really works. … the ankle pick worked. That was great.”
“You don’t do ankle picks with people in handcuffs,” one deputy said in their incident interview.
On June 14, Fisk signed a $500,000 settlement agreement with Jefferson County, agreeing to drop any legal claims. The settlement was signed by county officials on June 17.
In the agreement, Jefferson County does not admit liability for the incident or to any claim Fisk “has or could have raised related to or arising out of the incident.”
“The takedown, particularly while Mr. Fisk was handcuffed causing him to hit his face on the floor, was unjustified in its application,” sheriff’s spokesperson Karlyn Tilley said in an emailed statement to The Denver Post. “This administration does not condone this type of conduct. That said, the use of force appears to have been a result of inexperience and poor judgment, rather than malice.”
Tilley said all three deputies involved remain employed by the sheriff’s office and that two were disciplined. One deputy was suspended without pay, and one received a written reprimand and was removed as an arrest control instructor.
Fisk’s attorney, David Lane of civil rights litigation law firm Killmer Lane, said the settlement isn’t the end, because the deputies involved were not charged criminally.
“I’ve reached out to the Jefferson County district attorney, but she hasn’t returned my call,” he said. “Next stop, the U.S. Department of Justice.”
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Originally Published: June 30, 2024 at 6:00 a.m.
