KY prison guards Tasered inmates who failed drug tests, then lied about it

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Inmates whose urine tested positive for illegal drug use last year at Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex in Morgan County were given a choice by guards.

They could risk the official penalties, including loss of privileges and getting locked in solitary.

Or — to entertain the prison staff and keep their test results off the books — they could agree to be Tasered, receiving a painful electric shock the guards referred to as “riding the lightning.” Guards zapped them with state-issued Axon Taser 7 weapons intended strictly for defensive use.

After they were hit with the stun guns, inmates were allowed to toss their “dirty” urine samples in the trash.

At the prison’s monthly urine testing in April 2023, at least a half-dozen inmates decided to ride the lightning rather than be written up for drug use.

But they weren’t happy about it.

“They Tased the shit out of me! On my arm! Smelled like burnt skin all night, with scabs on it,” 41-year-old inmate Samuel Daniels of Louisville told investigators later. “They turned it up on me, too. I screamed like a bitch. They will probably all tell you, I was the loudest one in there.”

“Either you get Tased or take the dirty,” inmate Jason Gowers, 32, of Elizabethtown told investigators.

This secret abuse of state inmates didn’t remain a secret.

On March 12, seven inmates at Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against four guards and Warden James David Green, saying they were subjected to excessive force, cruel and unusual punishment and “an environment of fear and retaliation.”

The suit is pending in U.S. District Court in Ashland.

“It’s sadistic. There’s really no other way to describe it,” said Joseph Buckles, one of the inmates’ attorneys, in an interview this week with the Herald-Leader.

“And from what we understand — what’s been said by the inmates and others — this wasn’t the first time it happened. It’s been going on down there for years,” Buckles said.

The inmates’ claims are supported by an internal investigation at the Kentucky Department of Corrections, which determined that the Tasering happened as described.

The department does challenge one allegation in the lawsuit, that inmates sometimes got another choice: Either get Tasered or drink their own urine sample. Interviews with more than 20 inmates by internal investigators did not confirm anyone drinking urine, said department spokeswoman Morgan Hall.

Buckles said he stood by the lawsuit’s urine claim. The lawyer said it’s his understanding that some inmates at the prison have chosen to drink their own urine rather than be Tasered during the drug tests.

Three of the four guards being sued were fired last year and convicted on misdemeanor charges in Morgan District Court.

The fourth guard, who cooperated with investigators, was suspended from his job for 30 days. He was not charged with a crime.

Green, the prison’s warden since September 2018, has submitted his retirement notice and is on personal leave through Aug. 1, Hall said. He continues to draw his $113,495 salary, according to state payroll data.

Hall would not say if Green’s departure was related to the Tasering incidents.

Green is not accused of participating in the abuse. But as warden, it was his responsibility to know what guards under his command were doing to inmates in his custody, according to the lawsuit.

Green did not respond to a call this week seeking comment.

This is the prison’s second major inmate abuse scandal in recent years.

In July 2018, three guards carried a handcuffed, shackled inmate into the showers at Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex and repeatedly punched, kicked and stomped him, and three others helped try to cover it up, according to federal prosecutors. The inmate had swallowed drugs to keep them from being confiscated.

The guards in that case — two of whom were members of the prison’s internal affairs department — wrote a false report about the assault. But Kentucky State Police and the FBI eventually determined what happened.

Two months ago, those guards were sentenced in U.S. District Court to prison terms ranging from a month to five years. A seventh officer, separately convicted in February for his role in the assault, awaits sentencing in June.

An angry mother protests

The latest inmate abuse likely wouldn’t have come to light without the outrage of Carla Harris of Louisville.

She is the mother of 38-year-old Donte Harris, one of the inmates suing the guards.

Carla Harris was horrified a year ago when her son said he had been Tasered for guards’ amusement during drug testing. She wrote angry emails to government officials, including Gov. Andy Beshear, whose office forwarded her complaint to the Department of Corrections, according to documents obtained by the Herald-Leader.

“They are doing whatever they want to these inmates, which is not right,” Harris wrote to the governor on April 21, 2023. “These people need to be held accountable for the mistreatment of my son and the other inmates in there.”

Harris’ email prompted an internal investigation by the Department of Corrections three weeks later.

“They had been doing this to inmates for years and years. They have a notorious reputation at that prison,” Harris told the Herald-Leader this week. “But I’m retired. I’ve got nothing but time to tell people about their little reign of terror.”

It makes a difference when someone outside the prison protests the mistreatment of inmates, Harris said. Inmates complain, but they aren’t taken seriously, she said, and they are retaliated against by staff.

Her own son — who is scheduled for release next month — has been pepper sprayed and sent to solitary confinement since telling her about the Tasering, Harris said.

“These (inmates) aren’t animals, they’re people,” Harris said. “They made a mistake, but they’re doing their time, they’re paying the price. You don’t just get to do whatever you want to them because they’re locked up and you’re in charge.”

‘Staff likes to be jackasses’

To determine whether Harris’ complaint was accurate, the internal investigators focused on the most recent inmate drug testing on April 5, 2023, in the property room at Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex.

A small caged area with a urinal and a privacy curtain was used to march inmates through the room, obtain a urine sample in a cup and check the urine for the presence of illegal drugs.

Security video wasn’t entirely helpful because the privacy curtain blocked much of the action. But flashing lights behind the curtain showed that the guards’ Tasers were, in fact, being activated — and for no obvious reason. Some inmates left the caged area rubbing their arms as they tossed their urine samples into a trash can.

An engineer’s analysis of data from the Tasers confirmed 18 uses that day consistent with “skin discharge.” That indicates the Tasers were used to “drive-stun,” which means someone forcefully pushed the front of the stun gun into a human body for “pain compliance,” as the manufacturer describes it.

The guards performing drug tests in the property room were identified as Correctional Officer Robert “Boone” Collins, 33, of the Auxier community in Floyd County; Correctional Sgt. Robert Grim, 31, of Paintsville; Correctional Sgt. Alan Dube, 45, of Ashland; and Correctional Officer Justin Newsome.

Collins and Grim each had reprimands and suspensions for poor work performance in the two years leading up to the Tasering incident, according to their state personnel records.

Collins and Grim also had misdemeanor convictions for driving while intoxicated and possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia from separate incidents roughly a decade before the Tasering incident. They were hired by the Department of Corrections after those convictions.

(Felony and drug trafficking charges disqualify state prison job applicants in Kentucky, but misdemeanor drug charges don’t appear to, according to a department hiring notice. The Department of Corrections refused to answer questions on the subject this week.)

The guards told investigators that no inmates were Tasered that day, despite what some inmates alleged.

When they were shown the video of lights flashing behind the privacy curtain, the guards said they had been “messing with each other” by firing their Tasers in the air, just for fun, as the inmates took their drug tests.

“I will say that staff likes to be jackasses to each other and set the Tasers off behind each other’s back to make them jump,” Dube told investigators.

“Do they do that often?” one of the investigators asked.

“Honestly, yes,” Dube said.

“While they are doing urinalysis, while inmates are around?” the investigator asked.

“Yes,” Dube said.

Grim told investigators he heard tales of guards at the prison offering inmates a choice of getting Tasered or flunking a drug test “back when I started in 2019,” but not recently.

Newsome finally came back to investigators and changed his story. Newsome acknowledged the Tasering occurred as inmates described it, although he denied doing the Tasering himself. He blamed Collins.

“Yeah, I witnessed Boone Collins Tase an inmate,” Newsome told them. “It was not my idea to do this. Lord, no, I have been here almost three years and have never caused any trouble and never done anything like this.”

Investigators submitted a report June 6, 2023, substantiating the allegation that prison staff Tasered inmates during drug testing.

They identified six inmates they said they could confirm as being Tasered. One inmate told them he believed as many as 14 inmates were Tasered that day. But most of the 28 inmates they interviewed denied knowing anything or declined to talk, they wrote in their report.

Collins, Grim and Dube were fired June 28, 2023. Newsome was suspended for 30 days for failing to stop or report the tasering, at least not until Harris’ complaint led to a formal review. State records showed Newsome still on the Department of Corrections payroll this week at $43,856 a year.

Collins could not be reached for comment this week. Grim,

Dube and Newsome did not respond to requests for comment.

The fired guards were convicted in Morgan District Court last October, on charges of fourth-degree assault and second-degree official misconduct for Collins and Grim and second-degree official misconduct for Dube. They were sentenced to 30 days to 90 days in jail, but those sentences were put on hold for two years through conditional discharge, which is essentially a form of probation.

The system worked, said Hall, the Department of Corrections spokeswoman.

“This incident was investigated thoroughly and, as a result, multiple disciplinary actions were taken, including the dismissal of three employees,” Hall said. “We also presented this case to the local prosecutor and criminal charges were filed.”

However, Buckles, the inmates’ attorney, said the guards were only punished because an inmate’s mother made a lot of noise. Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex has a history of civil-rights violations, and yet the state provides inmates with little chance to file a grievance without being ignored or harassed, he said.

“No one cares what prisoners say or think,” Buckles said.

“But in this case, someone on the outside got word to the governor’s office. That’s why it was taken seriously this time. That’s what made the difference here.”

They were punished for misconduct in state prisons. KY’s juvenile justice agency hired them

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