By Michael J. Rochon
The Indianapolis Star
March 28, 2001
(Indianapolis, IN) - Antonio Reveles still feels stinging and numbness in his hands and wrists.
“My right one, it feels like it’s not there sometimes,” the 31-year-old Mexican immigrant said in a heavy Spanish accent, rubbing at dark bruises on his wrists.
On New Year’s Day, Reveles was handcuffed for nearly eight hours to a jail bed at Wishard Memorial Hospital after a street scuffle with Indianapolis police.
He said jailers placed handcuffs so tight that he suffered deep gashes in his wrists and the nerves in his bleeding arms were severed.
But Marion County Sheriff’s Department officials said an internal investigation conducted earlier this month revealed no wrongdoing by the detention unit jailers. They say Reveles isn’t telling the truth and suggest he might have injured himself after his release to make it appear he was brutalized while in custody.
“We don’t know how those injuries occurred,” said Lt. Bill Lorah, commander of internal affairs for the Sheriff’s Department.
“I can confirm that his wrists were red when he was released, but there was no sign of bleeding. I don’t know what he did to his wrists.”
Nonetheless, several people questioned Reveles’ treatment. Some experts say allowing an inmate to suffer injuries such as those claimed by Reveles would fall well short of acceptable jail practices.
“That kind of stuff is dangerous,” said Ken Kerle , spokesman of the Maryland-based American Jail Association. “If something medically happens, you’re in big trouble. What if he lost a hand or something?”
Reveles said the ordeal began just before 10 p.m. New Year’s Eve when he was returning home from a holiday celebration near Keystone Avenue and Prospect Street. Reveles, who admits he was drunk and disoriented, stopped at a small bridge along the way to compose himself.
According to confidential Indianapolis Police Department documents obtained by The Indianapolis Star , officers observed Reveles “flailing on his back in the snow.” He began tussling with the officers, who doused him with pepper spray.
Reveles was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication and transported to Wishard about midnight.
That’s where the stories begin to differ.
Reveles, a Mexico City native who has lived in Indiana for three years, said he was rendered unconscious during the confrontation with police. He said when he regained consciousness, he was tightly shackled to a bunk in the detention unit at Wishard.
However, Sheriff’s Department officials say Reveles was taken to the hospital jail facility kicking and screaming, and was wide awake -- and behaving irrationally -- the entire time. He was transferred to a cell where his feet and hands were cuffed.
Sheriff’s Department officials said it is standard policy to shackle prisoners to beds by a single foot and hand. More irate inmates are bound by both hands and feet.
“All of the staff, the nurses indicate that he was extremely drunk,” Lorah said. “The entire time he was there he was combative.”
Reveles said he was only trying to have the handcuffs on his wrists loosened a bit.
“I was screaming in English and Spanish, ‘Please help me. . . por favor ayuda me.’ They said they could do nothing. I begged them to help.”
Reveles remained bound to the bed until about 8 a.m. By the time he was transported to the Marion County Lockup, the skin on his wrist was broken and bleeding, he said.
Three days after his release, Reveles said he contacted his employer, Rod Webb, general manager of Aztec Resource Co. and a local Hispanic community advocate, to tell him he was unable to work.
Webb, upon seeing the extent of Reveles’ injuries and infection, immediately took him back to Wishard -- this time for treatment. He called a friend in the Indianapolis Police Department, Detective Wayne Sharp, who arrived at the hospital minutes later.
Sharp said he was appalled at the severity of Reveles’ injuries.
“I’ve been in law enforcement for over 20 years, and this is by far the worst thing I have ever seen,” he said.
But Sheriff’s Department officials question the time that it took Reveles to reveal his injuries.
“I want to know what happened in those three days” after he was released, Lorah said. “I don’t know if he irritated himself or what. They were not like that when he was released.”
Sheriff’s Department officials would not release results of the internal affairs investigation, completed March 8.
Sheriff Jack Cottey said the use of other methods of restraint have been explored, but handcuffing has proven to be the most useful when dealing with prisoners “if they are fighting and kicking and spitting,” he said.
Kerle, whose organization represents more than 3,000 jails, said new methods of restraining prisoners have been implemented in facilities nationwide. He said cases such as Reveles’ are considered rare.
“Thirty years ago you might have seen this kind of stuff,” Kerle said.
Reveles denied suggestions that he made up his story.
“I’m not going to make this up just to sue someone,” he said. “I am not crazy, and I am not a dog, man. That is how they treated me.”
Copyright 2000 LEXIS-NEXIS, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights Reserved.