Oct. 28--Inmate Markus Simmons was handcuffed behind his back in Cook County Jail when three guards escorted him into an elevator after a gang-related brawl in a Division 10 day room last year.
Out of view of cameras, one officer punched him in the face and slammed his head into the elevator's steel wall, while another pressed buttons to keep the car between floors, Simmons testified Monday in a federal courtroom.
Simmons, who had recently been transferred from another wing of the jail while awaiting trial on armed robbery charges, said the "elevator ride" was meant to send a message.
"'You guys from Division 9 come over here and think you all tough,'" Simmons quoted the officer who beat him as saying. "'We're gonna show you what Division 10 do to guys like you.'"
The allegations stemming from the December 2013 incident are at the center of a civil lawsuit brought by the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University alleging a culture of brutality inside the jail's two maximum-security divisions.
Simmons was one of four current or former jail inmates to testify Monday before U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall, who is holding a hearing on the center's request for a preliminary injunction to stop the alleged pattern of violence to inmates by other prisoners as well as correctional officers.
Sheriff Tom Dart, who oversees the jail, has vigorously disputed the lawsuit, once calling the allegations a "fictitious novel."
Simmons, who is an admitted member of the Gangster Disciples, testified that as many as 16 inmates took part in the brawl, saying it arose out of a simmering feud between the Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples. As pushing and shoving escalated into fisticuffs, guards gathered behind a glass partition with a shaky hand-held video camera rolling.
"It's going! It's going!" one guard exclaimed on the videotape, which was played during Simmons' testimony. As inmates began throwing haymakers, another officer seemed unable to contain his excitement, yelling, "Wooo! Wooo!"
After more than two minutes, the guards burst into the day room screaming for the inmates to get on the floor. Simmons, who could be seen on the video throwing punches, admitted that he was "mouthing off" to the guards once they came in and initially ignored their commands.
After he was beaten in the elevator, Simmons was taken to the basement lockup, where the officer who had punched him asked if he was "still tough," Simmons said.
"I said, 'Man, you only tough because I got handcuffs on,'" he testified.
He said the officer then took the handcuffs off, put them around his hands like brass knuckles and asked if Simmons wanted to "get a lick."
Asked what his overall experience in the jail has been, Simmons said, "You gotta basically fight for your life because you're not really being protected by the correctional officers. Basically it's like every man for himself."
On cross-examination, Simmons acknowledged that he had no serious injuries from the alleged elevator beating. During an interview with an internal affairs investigator, Simmons did not mention the elevator incident and also lied about his involvement in the gang fight, claiming he had remained in his cell.
Since 1980, the often overcrowded jail, the largest single-site in the country, has been run under a consent decree with oversight by a series of federal judges, the latest being Kendall.
The Northwestern lawsuit is backed by sworn statements from nearly 90 inmates but hinges on the opinion of Jeffrey Schwartz, an expert hired by the university who told the judge that violence inside the jail is among the worst he's seen.
Schwartz testified earlier this month about a "deep-seated and ubiquitous code of silence" at the jail that he said leads to an extremely high risk of harm to detainees.
But Dart said the lawsuit ignores the progress that has been made in recent years, including the creation of a new use-of-force review unit that reports to the county's inspector general, taking the handling of those incidents outside the jail staff.
The jail's executive director, Cara Smith, told the Tribune that the federal monitor who reports to Kendall told her staff just last week that they have one of the "premier large jails in the country."
jmeisner@tribune.com
Twitter @jmetr22b
Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported that Markus Simmons is a member of the Vice Lords street gang. Officials say he is a member of the Gangster Disciples.
