24 Hours Handcuffed

[Margarita Lovvorn]

Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo "Freddy" Ramirez was handcuffed and questioned after officers responded to reports of a man putting a gun to his head but was let go hours before he shot himself in an attempted suicide, according to new police reports and body camera footage.

The reports and footage released Wednesday detail Tampa Police's response to the alleged gun incident involving Ramirez back on July 23 at a Marriott hotel, where Ramirez had been attending the Florida Sheriff's Association's annual summer conference.

According to the reports, an unknown witness had seen Ramirez arguing with his wife, Jody, before Ramirez pulled out a gun and either put it to his head or in his mouth and allegedly said "I'm going to end it all today."

"He has plenty of demons from the job, as you guys all are probably aware of," Jody Ramirez said, according to the report. "I know every button to push and I'm pushing them today because I normally don't drink. He got me on Old Fashions (an alcoholic beverage), it's his fault."

"I explained to her that there was a process which we have to go through. She was understanding and stated, 'I would be 100% truthful, if I was in danger or he was doing something,'" an officer wrote in one report. "I explained that there were cameras out in the area where the argument began, outside the hotel, and explained to her that we didn't want to pull camera footage and see him taking the gun and she stated, 'He has a temper.'"

"The male advised he was armed but did not remove his firearm. I asked the subject if he wanted to harm himself or others and advised he did not. I further asked the subject if he had any suicidal thoughts, and he advised he did not," an officer wrote in one report.

But according to the reports, Tampa Police were later contacted by a Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office lieutenant, who said they'd been advised of the incident and were investigating it. The lieutenant said that they had "independent witnesses" and that they would be placing Alfredo under a Baker Act," the reports said.

At a news conference after the shooting, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said she spoke with Ramirez over the phone after the hotel incident but before he shot himself, and said he'd offered his resignation.

They were among dozens of inmates at North County Correctional Facility who were chained to the wall with their hands behind their backs, half-naked or even fully naked, sometimes with their feet shackled to the floor, as jail officials waited for them to expel contraband from their bodies.

Inmates must be prevented from secretly disposing of contraband, but there are ways to restrain them short of handcuffing them to a wall, such as securing their hands to a waist chain and keeping them under constant surveillance, corrections experts said.

Sixteen handcuffing cases have been rejected by prosecutors, including the 11-hour contraband watch and the case where the inmate sustained injuries to his wrists after being handcuffed for eight or nine hours.

Podberesky said she has viewed a videotape of the incident. In the tape, Estrada can be seen sitting on a stainless-steel bench with his hands cuffed to the wall, Podberesky said. He was checked on regularly and given food and water.

We are offloaded behind two sets of fences lined with razor wire and escorted to dirty segregation cells where we will stay for a few hours so the drivers can change shifts. The male prisoners stare at me like I am a piece of fresh meat; one of them grabs his crotch, and the officer escorting us orders him to face the wall as we pass.

There is not enough moonlight to show the clouds. We could be at 2,000 feet or 22,000, which is also how I feel in relation to my past and future: unanchored, floating between them. How did I get to this point? What good will this dreadful experience do for my future?

What catches my attention the most are the children. When you live in a place where they are absent, they seem suddenly strange, with their short little legs chasing their mothers into stores. If they only knew the value of the freedom they possess.

My daughter, with her big, forgiving eyes, deserved so much more than I could give her, and it would only be a matter of time before my unwillingness to change, to get sober, would taint her perfection. To continue holding on felt selfish.

In 1995, petitioner Hope, then an Alabama prison inmate, wastwice handcuffed to a hitching post for disruptive conduct. Duringa 2-hour period in May, he was offered drinking water and abathroom break every 15 minutes, and his responses were recorded onan activity log. He was handcuffed above shoulder height, and whenhe tried moving his arms to improve circulation, the handcuffs cutinto his wrists, causing pain and discomfort. After an altercationwith a guard at his chain gang's work site in June, Hope wassubdued, handcuffed, placed in leg irons, and transported back tothe prison, where he was ordered to take off his shirt, thusexposing himself to the sun, and spent seven hours on the hitchingpost. While there, he was given one or two water breaks but nobathroom breaks, and a guard taunted him about his thirst. Hopefiled a 42 U. S. C. 1983 suit against three guards. Withoutdeciding whether placing Hope on the hitching post as punishmentviolated the Eighth Amendment, the Magistrate Judge found that theguards were entitled to qualified immunity. The District Courtentered summary judgment for respondents, and the Eleventh Circuitaffirmed. The latter court answered the constitutional question,finding that the hitching post's use for punitive purposes violatedthe Eighth Amendment. In finding the guards nevertheless entitledto qualified immunity, it concluded that Hope could not show, asrequired by Circuit precedent, that the federal law by which theguards' conduct should be evaluated was established by cases thatwere "materially similar" to the facts in his own case.

(a) Hope's allegations, if true, establish an Eighth Amendmentviolation. Among the "'unnecessary and wanton' inflictions of pain[constituting cruel and unusual punishment forbidden by theAmendment] are those that are 'totally without penologicaljustification.''' Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U. S. 337, 346. Thisdetermination is made in the context of prison conditions byascertaining whether an official acted with "deliberateindifference" to the inmates' health or safety, Hudson v.M cMillian, 503U. S. 1, 8, a state of mind that can be inferred from the factthat the risk of harm is obvious, Farmer v. Brennan,511 U. S.825.

The Eighth Amendment violation here is obvious on the factsalleged. Any safety concerns had long since abated by the time Hopewas handcuffed to the hitching post, because he had already beensubdued, handcuffed, placed in leg irons, and transported back toprison. He was separated from his work squad and not given theopportunity to return. Despite the clear lack of emergency,respondents knowingly subjected him to a substantial risk ofphysical harm, unnecessary pain, unnecessary exposure to the sun,prolonged thirst and taunting, and a deprivation of bathroom breaksthat created a risk of particular discomfort and humiliation. Pp.736-738.

(b) Respondents may nevertheless be shielded from liability fortheir constitutionally impermissible conduct if their actions didnot violate "clearly established statutory or constitutional rightsof which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v.Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 818. Inits assessment, the Eleventh Circuit erred in requiring that thefacts of previous cases and Hope's case be "materially similar."Qualified immunity operates to ensure that before they aresubjected to suit, officers are on notice that their conduct isunlawful. Officers sued in a 1983 civil action have the same fairnotice right as do defendants charged under 18 U. S. C. 242,which makes it a crime for a state official to act willfully andunder color of law to deprive a person of constitutional rights.This Court's opinion in United States v. Lanier,520 U. S. 259, a 242 case, makes clear that officials can be on notice that theirconduct violates established law even in novel factual situations.Indeed, the Court expressly rejected a requirement that previouscases be "fundamentally similar." Accordingly, the salient questionthat the Eleventh Circuit should have asked is whether the state ofthe law in 1995 gave respondents fair warning that Hope's allegedtreatment was unconstitutional. Pp. 739-741.

(c) A reasonable officer would have known that using a hitchingpost as Hope alleged was unlawful. The obvious cruelty inherent inthe practice should have provided respondents with some notice thattheir conduct was unconstitutional. In addition, binding Circuitprecedent should have given them notice. Gates v.Collier, 501 F.2d1291, found several forms of corporal punishment impermissible,including handcuffing inmates to fences or cells for long periods,and Ort v. White, 813 F. 2d 318, 324, warned that"physical abuse directed at [a] prisoner after heterminate[s] his resistance to authority would constitute anactionable eighth amendment violation." Relevant to the questionwhether Ort provided fair notice is a subsequent AlabamaDepartment of Corrections (ADOC) regulation specifying proceduresfor using a hitching post, which included allowing an inmate torejoin his squad when he tells an officer that he is ready to work.If regularly observed, that provision

Parents across New York City awoke Wednesday morning to the news that Bronx third-grader Wilson Reyes was pulled out of class, handcuffed and interrogated over the course of 10 hours at his elementary school, and later, at a local precinct. Reyes was charged with robbery after someone said he grabbed $5 that a classmate had dropped on the floor, causing a scuffle among several boys.

Another student eventually admitted to taking the money, but it was well after Reyes had spent 10 hours handcuffed, interrogated and humiliated by the police. A police source told the NY Post that officers were responding to "a 9-1-1 call of a robbery and assault."

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