Richard Post was taken to jail in his wheelchair for mouthing off in a bar. Joe Arpaio's detention officers saw him as such a threat, they strapped him into a medieval restraint chair--and broke his neck.
By Tony Ortega
Published on January 23, 1997
Richard Post spent only a few hours in Madison Street Jail, but in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's penal colony, no stay is too short to avoid abuse.
Especially for inmates like Post, who make demands on their captors. For those kinds of troublemakers, Arpaio's jailers reserve a special form of treatment.
Call it the Madison Street Special: Jailers stuff unruly inmates into a medieval-looking restraint chair and--federal investigators have found--heap abuse on their immobilized wards.
Injuries and even a death have resulted from the use of the restraint chair, but Arpaio continues to defend its use for locking down trouble inmates.
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And broke Post's neck.
And now, almost a year after his stay in Joe Arpaio's jail, Post has lost much of the use of his arms, and faces surgery to remove a vertebra from his neck.
It's a tough penalty meted out by a tough sheriff, but then that's the avowed mission of a lawman who brags that his jails are meant to be so miserable no inmate will ever break the law again.
And that includes evildoers such as Richard Post, who has spent a total of one night in jail in his life.
His crime: possessing a gram of marijuana and calling someone an Englishman.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1997-01-23/news/jailers-show-a-paraplegic-who-s-boss/1