Three former employees of the county jail in Oklahoma City are being sued by inmates who claim that they were subjected to an unusual form of torture.
In a recently filed federal lawsuit, several inmates at the Oklahoma County jail claim they were forced to stand for three hours in "stress positions", handcuffed, and had to listen to the song 'Baby Shark' on a continuous loop.
In court documents, the plaintiffs claim that two former detention officers used a booth for attorneys and inmates to discipline them in late 2019, “and teach them a lesson because they felt that disciplinary action within the Detention Center was not working in correcting the behavior of the inmates.”
The inmates are seeking $75,000 in damages. Their lawyer is citing research from a clinical psychologist who says songs like "Baby Shark" can elicit "painful reactions in the brain" due to "high pitched tones and screeching sounds".
A spokesperson for the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office, which still had control of the jail at the time, sent KFOR television in Oklahoma City the following statement: “The Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office learned about allegations of detention officers being cruel to inmates on December 6, 2019. When the allegations were made an internal investigation was launched, and the detention officers were immediately removed from having contact with inmates per order of Sheriff PD Taylor. During the preliminary stages of the investigation all three detention officers under investigation either quit or resigned from their positions by the end of December2019.
The Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office took immediate action to investigate this incident while the jail was under our operational control, and completely support the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s decision to file charges on these former jail employees. Public trust is earned and criminal behavior cannot be tolerated by those who are sworn to protect inmates who are in their custody.
The probe into this misconduct was investigated by the Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Authority (Jail Trust) which took over operations of the jail on July 1, 2020. Jail Trust investigators presented charges to the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office on October 2, 2020. Requests for information regarding details surrounding their investigation will need to be made to either the Jail Trust, or the District Attorney’s Office.”
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