The Atrocities of Sheriff Arpaio and his Goons: The Charles Agster Case

Arpaio is an evil man. As I have long reported, he has lost over $40M in lawsuits for Maricopa County because of wrongful deaths and mistreatment of prisoners. His tactics are worse than Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib. It's important we remember his obscene and obsessive tactics as we watch the zoo-like behavior he is now displaying during his racial profiling "suppression sweeps" of Latino neighborhoods.

Here is the story of Charles Agster. In August 2001, Charles Agster, a 33-year-old mentally handicapped man died in Arpaio's jail three days after arpaio's goons forced him into a restraint chair worse than those in Guantanamo Bay.

The incident started when his parents decided to take Charles to a mental help facility when he started displaying odd behavior. On their way to the facility, they stopped at a convenience store. The mentally ill Charles would not leave the store and get back into the car. His mom and dad then called police. They thought the police might help them get their son back into the car so they could be on their way to the hospital. Instead, Arpaio's goons took Agster to the Madison Street jail, placed a terroristic "spit hood" over his face, cuffed him behind his back, dragged him across the floor and strapped him to the restraint chair, where, after he was cruelly restrained, the goons shoved his head forward between his legs until he stopped breathing. Unable to breathe, he lost consciousness. Not breathing, no assistance was provided to him for over five minutes. Finally the guards lay him on the ground and began to provide him CPR, all to no avail. Charles was in custody less than an hour and a half and he lay on the ground unconscious, not breathing. He was declared brain dead three days later. A subsequent lawsuit resulted in a $9 million jury verdict against the county, the sheriff's office, and Correctional Health Services.