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Woman Allegedly Pepper-Sprayed, Stripped, Left Naked By Jailers
huffingtonpost.com A misdemeanor arrest resulted in an Indiana woman being stripped naked, pepper-sprayed and left for hours on the floor of an unsanitary holding cell, according to her attorney. "This is not Abu Ghraib," attorney Laura Landenwich told The Huffington Post. "This is someone charged with misdemeanor crimes in Indiana." Landenwich is representing 31-year-old Tabitha Gentry, a mother of four from New Albany, Indiana. According to Landenwich, the Indiana State Police arrested Gentry on March 30 for disorderly conduct and resisting an officer, following an alleged domestic dispute between Gentry and her estranged husband. Following Gentry's arrest, a state trooper transported her to the Floyd County Jail, which is operated by the Floyd County Sheriff's Department. The jail's video surveillance system captured much of what happened next, beginning with Gentry's arrival at the jail entrance, according to her attorney. "She is handcuffed behind her back and as far as the video shows -- it has no audio -- you can see she is compliant," Landenwich said. "She is walking without assistance and is not making any threatening gestures or anything like that." However, during the booking process, the video captures some sort of dispute between Gentry and the jail staff. Landenwich described it as a "verbal altercation." The sheriff's department did not return multiple calls for comment from HuffPost. However, according to a written jail report obtained by the Louisville Courier-Journal, jail officials allege that Gentry was drunk and belligerent, and that she kicked and cursed officers as they questioned her. Following the alleged altercation, Gentry, according to the jail report, "was being placed in a smock and the females [officers] were going to remove her clothes." However, according to Landenwich, the video surveillance that captured the altercation clearly shows "two male deputies and two female deputies" removing her client's clothing. "[They] take off her shoes, her pants, her underwear [and then they] uncuff her and take off her shirt," Landenwich said. The attorney also said the video shows Gentry being placed in a solitary cell, completely naked, without a smock or any sort of covering. "Before she gets in there, there is video from that cell that shows another inmate in that cell," said Landenwich. "He has a smock wrapped around himself. You see a deputy go get a jumpsuit, give it to whoever that person is, and he is taken out and my client is taken in." Time stamps on the video allegedly show that Gentry was placed in the cell at 4:15 a.m., roughly 8 minutes after her arrival at the jail. A short time later, the video captures Gentry banging on the door. According to her attorney, she was "screaming for her clothes or something to wear." The commotion allegedly continued and, at about 5:12 a.m., an officer approached the cell. "You see the little slot in the door open and a can of pepper spray go into the room and just spray like you would spray an air freshener," said Landenwich. "You see my client, who is completely naked, back up against the far wall." According to The Courier-Journal, the jail report they obtained notes that an officer dispersed pepper spray into Gentry's cell because she was yelling, pounding on the door and agitating other inmates. "I made the decision that I had to gain her compliance for the safety of this facility," Sgt. Ryan Rainey wrote in the report, according to the newspaper. He also reportedly described the amount of pepper spray released as a "short burst." Landenwich criticized the use of the pepper spray. "Standard protocol in every police case I have ever dealt [with] is that you're allowed to use [the] force necessary to maintain [an] officer's safety or [the] safety of other people," she said. "Well, here we have a woman, who is naked, locked in a cell, who cannot possibly pose a threat to anybody." The attorney also claims the surveillance videos show her client was not offered any immediate aid to remove the chemical from her body. "They left her in there with that chemical in the air and on her body for about 40 minutes," Landenwich said.
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