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Inmate sues Boyle County Detention Center

Prisoner claims he was beaten by another inmate

June 14, 2012|By TODD KLEFFMAN | tkleffman@amnews.com

A former inmate at the Boyle County Detention Center is suing the facility and Jailer Barry Harmon, alleging he was beat up by another inmate who was smoking in the bathroom of what is supposed to be a smoke-free facility.

Christopher Byrd of Harrodsburg filed the lawsuit last week in Boyle Circuit Court. It seeks an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages from Harmon, the jail, unnamed deputy jailers and Boyle Fiscal Court.

According to the lawsuit, Byrd was incarcerated at the facility from April 14 through July 7 of last year. He is currently awaiting trial on charges of first-degree assault and driving under the influence of intoxicants.

On June 2, 2011, Byrd “sustained significant bodily injury” when he was attacked by another inmate in the restroom facilities at the jail, the complaint alleges.

Byrd’s attorney, Ephraim Helton of Danville, said Wednesday that Byrd’s spleen was ruptured in the assault and had to be removed.

Jail personnel bear responsibility for Byrd’s injuries, the lawsuit maintains, because they knew, or should have known, that inmates were smoking in the bathrooms — even though the jail has been smoke-free for about three years — and that created unsupervised, unsafe conditions that fostered the attack on Byrd.

Inmates were smoking in or near the restrooms “so as to avoid not only the detection of the cigarette smoke, but also so as to avoid appropriate supervision and monitoring by defendants, thereby creating an unsafe, inappropriate, unsupervised and dangerous environment,” the complaint states.

Helton said inmates routinely gather in the restroom or near its entrance to smoke cigarettes. The area is around a corner and out of view of the common cell where most inmates are housed, Helton said.

None of the defendants has yet responded to the allegations in the lawsuit.

Chief Deputy Jailer Ricky Gibson said Wednesday he has not seen the complaint and has no knowledge of the alleged attack on Byrd. Gibson did say, however, that allegations jail employees look the other way when inmates smoke in the jail’s bathroom are not true.

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