Chamberlain tried to defend himself but quickly fell to the concrete floor, curling into a ball. "Stop, please, stop," he screamed.
The beating came in waves. As some inmates rested, others took their place. They stomped on his head, holding onto a bunk bed for leverage. One inmate punched Chamberlain so hard that he broke his hand. They used their tennis shoes as blackjacks. Somebody dumped scalding water onto Chamberlain's stripped-down body. Others spit and urinated on him, inserting plastic spoons into his rectum.
Chamberlain crawled beneath a bed for protection, but they pulled him out, yelling "baby raper." They told him that molested kids hurt just as much. At one point, the attackers huddled to discuss whether someone should rape Chamberlain. As they rested, some of the attackers shook hands with each other, the report said.
Inmates estimated that 12 to 20 people took part in the beating. The rest nervously watched the Dodgers or played dominoes, pingpong and cards. One inmate said the punches sounded like drums thumping. But in their enclosed guard station, Taylor, Chapluk and Le didn't hear the beating.
An investigation is underway, by the Sheriff's office. There's evidence of a potential coverup.
The investigative file shows that Taylor watched television on duty and that deputies added an entry to the jail log after the death to reflect that Taylor had shown concern for Chamberlain's safety. Moreover, the file shows the department tolerated a jail subculture in which inmates enforce their own laws and inflict punishment on one another.
Why are they investigating themselves?
The Assistant Sheriff says his deputies did nothing wrong.
Assistant Sheriff Charles Walters, who is in charge of the jails, did say, "There is nothing that leads us to believe there was any wrongdoing by our staff."
More at the Orange County Weekly:
The guards and prisoners inside Orange County’s jail system operate in a hierarchical power structure that is strangely symbiotic. Theo Lacy is no exception. To enforce order among the 1,800 inmates housed there, the vastly outnumbered guards rely on the leaders or “shot-callers” of three main jail groups: the “Woods,” or whites; the “Southsiders,” mostly Latino gang members; and the “Paisanos,” mostly illegal immigrants from Mexico. Each shot-caller has a “mouse,” or assistant, who is responsible for passing along commands from shot-callers to the rest of the inmates. Helping the shot-callers enforce those orders are “torpedoes,” typically the toughest or most violent members of each clique.
If a guard wants the inmates in his area of the jail to clean up their bunks, he simply tells the shot-callers to pass the word that if the bunks aren’t spotless in a matter of minutes, nobody gets access to the day room, where inmates play cards or chess or watch television—mostly reruns of The Simpsons. Since day room is the only thing inmates can look forward to to disrupt the monotony of their lives, whoever fails to comply with the command could expect to be punished with a beating by a torpedo.
“There is a hierarchy in every cell block, and if you don’t do what you are told, you’re screwed,” says one former inmate. “It’s a jungle, and the deputies are all in on it.”
Another question, how did the guards have so much control over the inmates?
