In lawsuit, former Bucks County inmate claims letter confirms excessive force used on him.

A federal judge has ruled a civil rights lawsuit by a former Bucks County inmate who alleges his mental illness worsened after corrections officers beat and strangled him while he was confined to a restraint chair can proceed to trial.

In a strongly worded order, U.S. District Court Judge Karen Spencer Marston denied Bucks County’s request to dismiss the case through summary judgment stating that Mubarak Alexander “plausibly alleged” the county used "objectively unreasonable" physical force against him.

“Viewing these allegations as true, the court finds that an unprompted, group-assault of a restrained and compliant inmate is inhumane and atrocious, let alone, ‘objectively unreasonable,’" Marston wrote in her May order rejecting the county’s motion.

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Alexander, 30, of Philadelphia, currently a state inmate in Schuylkill County, alleges seven corrections officers participated in assaulting him while he was strapped and handcuffed in a restraint chair in July 2018. His suit names as defendants the county and corrections employees.

The lawsuit also alleges that an infirmary nurse refused to either document or treat his injuries as a result of the assault and former Warden Paul Langana advised him against filing grievances about the assault.

Alexander’s court-appointed attorney Amara Chaudhry Kravitz was unavailable for comment Wednesday. Through its spokesman James O'Malley, the county declined comment on the order citing ongoing litigation.

The lawsuit alleges the assault took place in a common area of the jail’s mental health unit where other inmates and staff could witness it and that this type of behavior among corrections staff was condoned by supervisors, and that two supervisors took part in the assault.

Mubarak Alexander says Bucks County Jail restrained him for no reason

Alexander was an inmate in Bucks County between March 2018 and November 2020, when a judge sentenced him to 30 to 60 months in state prison after he pleaded no contest to felony theft and other offenses that occurred while he was incarcerated.

During his nearly 1,000 days in the jail, Alexander, who is diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and auditory hallucinations, alleges he spent most of his time in the restrictive housing or mental health units, often on suicide watch, a restrictive protocol for inmates at risk for self harm.

Alexander alleges that while on suicide watch in the mental health unit on July 6, 2018, corrections officers entered his cell, handcuffed him and took him to a common area where he was placed in a restraint chair, limiting movement of his arms and legs.

The restraint chair is a use-of-force option for corrections officers when an inmate’s behavior presents a threat to themselves or others.

In an amended lawsuit filed earlier this year, Alexander claims that officers placed him in a restraint chair for no behavioral reason.

While in the chair, Alexander alleges, officers repeatedly punched, elbowed and hit him in the face, head, chest and arms, stomach, legs and genitals while other corrections staff cheered and encouraged the assault, according to the lawsuit.

After the assault, Alexander claims, a sergeant placed a towel around his bloody face and neck, and “squeezed tightly” making it hard to breathe.

The towel was then replaced with a spit mask, a mesh cloth covering the face and head. Alexander alleges after applying the mask, the officers yanked it backward, choking him, before taking him to infirmary.

At the infirmary, Alexander alleges the nurse on duty refused to treat his injuries, including a bloody mouth, bruises and “extreme pain” and told the corrections staff that Alexander refused medical treatment.

When Alexander asked the nurse to photograph and document his injuries, she refused, telling him the corrections staff should have documented them, since use-of-force incidents are supposed to be video recorded.

In his lawsuit, though, Alexander told the nurse that the sergeant responsible for recording turned the camera off not long after he was removed from the cell.

Bucks County denied this news organization a copy of the Use of Force incident report filed for the incident Alexander alleges in his lawsuit citing it as exempt under the “noncriminal investigation” exemption of the Pennsylvania Right to Know law.

The documents are filed when officers use physical force against an inmate and include information about the reason for the use of force, whether the incident was video recorded, if a misconduct was issued and medical treatment provided or refused. All officers and supervisors involved in a use of force must fill out the incident reports, which are then reportedly reviewed by corrections administration.

Alexander claims he was left in the restraint chair after he was returned to an empty shower in the mental health unit and remained there restrained until the next shift, when a different supervisor returned him to his cell and took him out of the chair.

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The lawsuit does not say how long Alexander was left in the restraint chair. The county corrections policy sets a four-hour limit for restraint chair use, unless an offender is still behaving aggressively. The maximum time allowed in a restraint chair under the policy is eight hours, and in those cases a shift commander must be informed.

In the lawsuit, Alexander alleges after the assault he suffered an increase in his auditory hallucinations and suicidal thoughts.

Letter confirms assault. Does it suggest a pattern?

Alexander claims he filed multiple grievances with the corrections department about the assault and Lagana met with him and directed him to stop filing the grievances and stop talking to people about the assault.

But Alexander did not stop, according to the lawsuit.

Three years after the alleged assault, Alexander received a response to a grievance he filed with the Bucks County Prison Oversight Board in October 2020.

Bucks County Chief Public Defender Ann Russavage-Faust signed the letter, which was dated March 2021 and included in the lawsuit filing.

Russavage-Faust said the board investigated Alexander's allegations and learned the guard who struck him was “immediately fired by prison officials.” The other guards “who were present during the incident were re-trained,” according to a copy of the letter.

In his lawsuit, Alexander also alleges the mistreatment he experienced is not an anomaly and there is a "widespread practice or custom" at the jail of assaulting compliant and restrained mentally ill inmates, and the county has failed to adequately train officers on use of force appropriate in situations involving inmates displaying symptoms of mental illness.

The suit also noted the county does not have a separate use-of-force policy in place for inmates with mental illness, which is contrary to national standards.

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In her order, Marston rejected the county’s argument that Alexander failed to either adequately document the existence of a “practice or custom” of mistreatment of mentally ill inmates or identify county corrections training policies or allege whether the defendants were following those policies.

Marston found the county has no policy on the “appropriate amount” of force to be used in situations involving inmates with mental illness and that the county’s use-of-force training does not specify what is the appropriate amount of force to be used with inmates showing signs of mental distress and lacks training on the appropriate use of the restraint chair.

“Alexander has also sufficiently alleged that the need for this training is ‘so obvious’ that the county’s failure to have specialized training for officers working in the MHU could amount to deliberate indifference.”

Marston also wrote that Alexander’s allegations are plausible and suggested that “assaultive conduct was consistent with the custom and practices at BCCF and, in fact, that such assaultive behaviors upon a mentally ill inmate was something which the (corrections officers) expected would be tolerated and not punished.”

“Alexander’s experience may be part of a broader practice at BCCF that was known and accepted by prison officials,” Marston added.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Judge: Excessive force lawsuit against Bucks County jail can proceed.