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Inmates sue for being ‘tortured’ with Baby Shark song

Legal action taken against Oklahoma County Detention Center by group of former pre-trial detainees

Graeme Massie
Los Angeles
Saturday 06 November 2021 18:31 GMT
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<p>Oklahoma County Detention Center </p>

Oklahoma County Detention Center

The Baby Shark song was used as a “torture” tactic against inmates at an Oklahoma jail, a new lawsuit claims.

The federal civil rights lawsuit filed by a group pre-trial detainees who were at the Oklahoma County Detention Center in 2019, also alleged excessive force.

Oklahoma County Sheriff Tommie Johnson III, the board of county commissioners, the jail trust and two former jail officers are all named as defendants in the case.

The lawsuit states that the defendants failed to adequately train and supervise prison officers.

And it claims that supervisors knew that officers involved had a history of mistreatment, but that no actions were taken to prevent it.

Court papers say that Joseph Mitchell was removed from his cell at 11.45pm on 30 November 2019 by officers, who placed him in a room in a “standing stress position” for four hours.

Officers are accused of then playing the popular but droning children’s song on a loop, the lawsuit claims.

“Mitchell was forced to listen to the song over and over while physically restrained in the attorney visitation room. The volume of the song was so loud that it was reverberating down the hallways,” it states.

John Basco and Daniel Hedrick also were forced to stand in a stress positions while listening to the song, the lawsuit states.

It also claims that Ja’Lee Foreman Jr, who was not forced to listen to the song, was placed in a stress position, kneed in the back and pushed into a wall by one officer, and spat on by another.

The court papers say that none of the plaintiffs had posed a threat to any of the officers.

Two former detention officers and a supervisor were charged with misdemeanor counts of cruelty to a prisoner and conspiracy as a result of an investigation into the claims.

A jury trial in the criminal case is set for February 2022.

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