Excessive Force
My Son Was Beaten by Guards — What Do I Do in the First 48 Hours?
He called and he sounded wrong. Or a man in his unit called his girlfriend, and she called you. Or he has not called at all, which is its own kind of answer.
You do not have to decide tonight whether to sue anybody. You do have to do a few small things before Thursday, because two clocks started the moment it happened and nobody there will mention either one.
The first is the video. Jail and prison cameras record over themselves. How long they hold depends on the facility, the vendor, and sometimes how full the drive is — commonly 30 to 90 days, sometimes much less. There is no national rule, and anyone who quotes you one is guessing. Assume nothing and send your request today.
The second is the jail's own complaint process. Most facilities put a short deadline on filing a grievance — often days, not weeks. That form looks like nothing. Further down is why it isn't.
Tonight
Write it all down, now. The date and time of the call. His exact words. What hurt and where. Any name, nickname, or description of an officer. Who else was on the unit. What the staff member on the phone told you, word for word, with their name and the time. Keep it in one notebook, dated and in order. Do not tidy it up later — the messy same-night version is worth more.
Ask for medical attention in writing, tonight. Call the shift supervisor, give his full name and booking number, and say: "I am requesting that he be seen by medical for injuries and that the request be documented." Get the supervisor's name and the time, then send the same request by email or fax so a dated record exists outside the call. Ask him to submit his own sick-call request and keep his copy. A medical record made in the first two days is the most useful document in this whole situation.
Send the preservation letter today. Address it to the sheriff or warden, copy the facility's records or legal office, and send it in a way that proves delivery:
Re: [His full name], booking/register number [number], incident of [date]
I am writing to request that your agency preserve and not destroy, overwrite, delete, or alter any of the following: all video and audio recordings from [housing unit, date, and approximate time], including handheld and body-worn camera footage; all incident, use-of-force, and disciplinary reports; all medical and sick-call records; all logs, rosters, and staffing assignments for that shift; and all related emails and text messages. Please confirm in writing that this material has been preserved and identify your agency's retention period for the footage.
Ask that last question every time; the answer, or the refusal, tells you something.
Assume every call and visit is recorded. Say what happened plainly; assume the rest will be read aloud later.
This week: the grievance is his to file, and it matters more than it looks
This is the part families get wrong, and it quietly ends cases years later.
Federal law says: "No action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions ... by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted." 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). The Supreme Court has said this covers exactly what happened to him — it "applies to all inmate suits about prison life, whether they involve general circumstances or particular episodes, and whether they allege excessive force or some other wrong." Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516 (2002).
So: he files the grievance on the facility's own form, keeps a copy, writes down the date and who he handed it to, and appeals every level, even the pointless-looking ones. A grievance filed and denied is worth a great deal. One never filed is the defense's first motion.
Two things soften this, if you are afraid he cannot do it:
He only has to use a process that actually exists for him. "An inmate need exhaust only such administrative remedies as are 'available.'" Ross v. Blake, 578 U.S. 632 (2016). A process is unavailable, the Court said, "when prison administrators thwart inmates from taking advantage of a grievance process through machination, misrepresentation, or intimidation." If they will not give him a form, if it vanishes after he hands it in, if an officer tells him what happens to men who file — write down the date, the officer, and the words. That record is the answer to it.
He does not have to prove any of this up front. "Failure to exhaust is an affirmative defense under the PLRA, and ... inmates are not required to specially plead or demonstrate exhaustion in their complaints." Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199 (2007). It is the jail's burden to raise, not his to disprove.
And if raising it inside the facility would put him in danger, he may not have to file it there at all. In a federal facility, a request the inmate reasonably believes is sensitive — where his safety or well-being would be endangered if it became known at the institution — may be sent directly to the Regional Director, marked "Sensitive," with a written explanation for skipping the institution. 28 C.F.R. § 542.14(d)(1). He does not have to hand a complaint about staff to those staff.
This week: the outside complaints, and what each one can really do
Complain in writing to the sheriff's internal affairs unit and the state agency that inspects jails. Keep copies.
The U.S. Department of Justice also takes complaints about jail and prison conditions — but be clear-eyed about what that is. The statute lets the Attorney General sue a state or county "for such equitable relief as may be appropriate," and only where conditions are "egregious or flagrant" and part of "a pattern or practice." 42 U.S.C. § 1997a. That is the government suing an institution to change how it runs — not representing your son, and not getting him money. File it anyway, but do not wait on it.
The deadline nobody mentions
A federal civil rights case has a filing deadline borrowed from state law: the limitations period is "that which the State provides for personal-injury torts." Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384 (2007). His state's deadline differs from the one next door. Many states also require written notice to a county or city within a few months before you can sue it at all. Find out which apply where he is held — this week.
What the law actually asks
If he has not been convicted and is waiting for trial, the Supreme Court held that "a pretrial detainee must show only that the force purposely or knowingly used against him was objectively unreasonable," judged on the "facts and circumstances of each particular case." Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389 (2015). Nobody has to prove what was in an officer's heart.
If he is serving a sentence, the standard is harder. "When prison officials maliciously and sadistically use force to cause harm, contemporary standards of decency always are violated." Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1 (1992). But the size of the injury is not the test: the "core judicial inquiry" is "not whether a certain quantum of injury was sustained, but rather whether force was applied in a good-faith effort to maintain or restore discipline, or maliciously and sadistically to cause harm." Wilkins v. Gaddy, 559 U.S. 34 (2010).
If they are refusing to treat him now, that is its own violation — "deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners constitutes the 'unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain.'" Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976). Which is why the sick-call slip tonight counts twice.
One hard thing, said straight: federal law limits suits "for mental or emotional injury suffered while in custody without a prior showing of physical injury or the commission of a sexual act." 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e). So document the physical injuries — photographs, medical records, his own written account — while the bruises are still there.
What you can put down tonight
You do not need to know any of these words to protect him. Write the letter in your own words; nobody is grading it.
He does not have to win the grievance. He has to file it, keep the copy, and appeal it. If they blocked him, that is something you record, not something you lost.
And you do not need money tonight. Everything on this page you can do yourself, for the cost of postage.
The First 72 Hours
We put the whole checklist in one place — the preservation letter you can copy, the records request, what to write down, and the order to do it in. It is free and it comes by email, so you have it on your phone when you are standing in a parking lot outside a facility.
Send me the First 72 Hours guide →
If you would rather just talk to a person, call 786-408-5073 and ask for Charles Christopher. If it is the middle of the night, send the email instead and it will be read in the morning.
Prisoner Legal Aid prepares documents, requests records, explains deadlines, and connects families with independent civil rights attorneys, under the oversight of a licensed attorney. Nobody can tell you how this ends. What you can do is make sure the record is still there when somebody finally looks at what happened to your son.