US inmates forced to rub anti-lice cream on bodies, stand naked for 12hrs
By ANIMonday, January 31, 2011
WASHINGTON - A federal lawsuit filed by two prisoners has claimed that 29 northwest Georgia inmates were forced to rub cream on their bodies and stand in their cells naked for 12 hours.
The lawsuit, filed against the Whitfield County sheriff’s office in U.S. District Court in Rome, seeks 5 million dollars in punitive damages, according to The Daily Citizen in Dalton.
The suit contends the inmates were humiliated while behind bars at the Whitfield County jail in October.
A sheriff’s office captain told the newspaper the cream was an anti-lice treatment.
Two members of the jail staff were disciplined following the incident, the report said.
“They came into the dorm and told us to strip, and never told us why,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution quoted David Bennett, one of the inmates that filed the suit, as telling the newspaper.
“They said it’d be for a couple of hours with no covering. I’ve been in prison, but this had never happened. It seemed absurd to me. I was physically sick for a week afterward from the cold, and all because they think some 18-year-old kid who had left the day before had lice,” Bennett said. (ANI)
