(CN) - Six former and current inmates of a New Mexico county jail sued Thursday accusing the Dona Ana County Detention Center of conducting unwarranted paramilitary training operations on incarcerated people that amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
Mario Banda-Alicea, Tyler Cole, Jonathan Silva, Jeremy Dean Smith, Mario Carrasco and Zachary Gonzales claim the jail's Special Operations and Response Team repeatedly "terrorized" them and other inmates, often stunning them with flashbangs, forcing strip searches and aiming weapons at their genitals in violation of New Mexico's Prison Rape Elimination Act.
"They turn normal everyday stuff into a nightmare," said Banda-Alicea, who is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico. "We'd be in the pod - hanging out, getting a haircut, minding our own business - and they'd come in like we're terrorists or something. Guns pointed at us, making us crawl on our hands and knees. For what?"
Banda-Alicea, who spent seven months in the county jail in 2023, says he now takes medication for PTSD.
"Now I can't sleep right," he said. "I have nightmares about them coming back, about them hurting me. They treated us like guinea pigs for their training games."
The jail's Special Operations and Response Team was purportedly created to handle high-risk situations like riots and evacuations. Instead, inmates say the team has routinely terrorized inmates and used them as live training subjects for new cadets. Video evidence shows SORT officers attacking people who were playing cards, getting haircuts, conducting Bible study or sleeping, the ACLU says.
The response team has conducted at least 112 such operations since January 2023, the plaintiffs say, escalating routine situations into violent training exercises.
"SORT's needless, violent actions serve no legitimate purpose - they amount to psychological torture that tears people apart and offers no benefit to anyone," said Lalita Moskowitz, senior prisoners' rights attorney at the ACLU of New Mexico. "It achieves the opposite of safety and security. These paramilitary operations traumatize people, most of whom are presumed innocent and awaiting trial. After enduring these violent raids, individuals struggle with severe PTSD, nightmares, and constant fear. When people are released back to their communities, they return damaged rather than rehabilitated."
Silva, who was transferred to a different facility in July, claims officers destroyed his hearing aids by shooting a flashbang in his cell near his head and refused to replace them for nearly four months. At least once, he says he was tased for not following commands after officers refused to let him charge the batteries in his hearing aids.
The other inmates describe similar offenses in the lawsuit.
Cole, who spent six months in the jail before he was transferred in April, says he was subject to violence at least once a month.
In one incident described on Aug. 8, 2024, inmates say the response team raided the same pod twice - once at 4 a.m. and again at 7 a.m. - firing flashbangs to wake them, rushing cells with taser threats against half-asleep people laying down with their hands on their heads. Officers would not allow people to dress before escorting them out at taser-point, the plaintiffs added.
"Many of our clients were not convicted of a crime and were simply waiting for their day in court," said Meg Sparrow, an attorney with Smith & Marjanovic Law. "DACDC is a place of terror. Our clients describe living in a war zone, subjected to paramilitary operations at all hours of day and night. The county has destroyed people's mental health and then released them back into our communities with deep psychological wounds. That's not justice. That's creating more harm."
It's not the first time Dona Ana County has been accused of violating civil rights of detainees. In 2021, the county paid $115,000 to settle with an inmate who claimed she was held in solitary confinement for 85 days in retaliation for reporting sexual and physical abuse.
In Thursday's complaint, the plaintiffs also accuse the detention center of spoiling and concealing evidence. They argue that the detention center refused to produce information and used social media to alter and conceal facts regarding the response team.
"Upon information and belief, defendant's conduct was designed to deter, prevent, weaken or undermine a potential lawsuit by plaintiffs," the inmates say. "Defendant's nondisclosure, concealment, manipulation and deletion is the legal equivalent of destroying, mutilating or altering evidence, which activities at a minimum should warrant sanctions, an adverse inference jury instruction and support a cause of action for intentional spoliation of evidence."
The county has not replied to a request for comment.
Source: Courthouse News Service
