The Okaloosa County Department of Corrections first received complaints of this nature in October of 2018. At that time, an in-depth inquiry was conducted. Those results were summarized and given to the complainant in October of 2018. Those findings were as follows:
Mr. Feagin,
I hope this mailing finds you well.
I probed into your statements alleging wrongdoing by the Okaloosa County Department of Corrections, only. Your statements to us have also contained allegations against parties and agencies we have no operational influence over. I am unable to assist you effectively with those matters. I have forwarded your statements to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office’s Office of Professional Standards. Someone from their office will be in contact with you.
I reviewed various forms of documentation, to include information archived in our jail management system; documents retrieved from off-site Medical archives; security camera archives; archived Inmate Request Forms; Disciplinary Reports; and other various sources of information that could give me insight into what happened the day of your inmate affray and your post-altercation treatment more than three years ago. My findings are as follows:
According to a Disciplinary Report and its associated supplements, on August 16, 2015, our staff noticed you and another inmate fighting in Delta Pod during the feeding of the lunch meal. A call for assistance was communicated over our radio system, and several staff members of varying ranks responded to separate and restrain you and the other inmate. The officer who placed you in wrist restraints turned you over to an officer from a different work assignment who arrived on the scene after other staff members took control and terminated the fight. This officer escorted you to Medical.
During the Medical evaluation, Medical staff made the determination to rehouse you to the Medical Housing Unit (MHU) to ensure routine checks could be conducted by medical professionals.
An entry in the medical records made prior to rehousing you in Medical Housing states you were “yelling obscenities at staff,” that your vital signs were up, and that you were complaining of head and neck pain. Additionally, you stated the “other inmate jumped on [you] over a phone card.” Your medical record provides no entries indicating you voiced a belief that a staff member caused any of your injuries.
Supplemental Reports to the Disciplinary Report indicate before housing you in Medical, the officer who initially escorted you to Medical escorted you back to Delta Pod so you could gather your own personal property. This courtesy is not common, and suggests a high level of rapport and cooperation between you and this officer.
While housed in Medical, various Medical staff conducted routine checks on your condition until you were cleared for rehousing on August 18th of 2015. Dr. Delgado also saw you during this time, and he ordered an X-ray of your facial bones. You were released from our custody before our X-ray tech could fill this order.
During the intake screening of your next incarceration with us (less than 2 months later), correctional staff and medical staff noted no mobility impairments, and report you denied being on any medications or having any ongoing medical problems. This would have been a good opportunity to report any injury you believed resulted from the mistreatment of staff in an earlier incarceration.
I discovered three inmate request forms submitted by you during your incarceration of October, 2015. One of them requested answers about your charges and court date, and the other two were regarding your commissary account. There are no inmate request forms from you requesting any type of follow-up care for injuries sustained in your earlier incarceration. There were no inmate request forms or nurse sick-call forms from you requesting Dr. Delgado’s order for X-rays be filled.
Your records do not include any reports of you stating you suffered injury caused by the actions of staff. All of our staff, as well as all of our contracted staff, are highly motivated to report any statement by an inmate indicating they were injured by one of our staff members. Let me be clear here: If any officer or medical staff member received a report from you that you were injured by a staff member, and they then failed to report that statement, the penalties could be severe - they could even lose their job and/or be held criminally liable. Yet, I am unable to find any such report, in any of the documented encounters conducted by numerous medical professionals and correctional professionals.
The first instance I can find of you claiming any mistreatment by staff of the Okaloosa County Department of Corrections is three years later - in October of 2018, which I am responding to now. I truly regret you did not bring your complaint forward sooner, as it would have enabled us to speak with all staff mentioned in the reports. Some of the Medical and Security staff named in the documents I reviewed no longer work with us.
There is not enough evidence to sustain an accusation that a violation of our policy or law occurred in the handling of this incident. This appears to be either a misunderstanding or a disagreement regarding the application of law or departmental policy, and I am hereby closing my inquiry.
I wish you the best,
Lt. Travis L. Huisken, MPA, CPM
Inspector, Professional Standards
Okaloosa County Department of Corrections
1200 East James Lee Blvd.
Crestview, Florida 32539
Office: (850) 689-4678
Fax: (850) 689-5090
thuisken@myokaloosa.com
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