OLMITO - A CHANNEL 5 NEWS investigation exposes allegations of abuse behind bars in Cameron County.
Inmates at Carrizalez-Rucker Detention Center tell stories of violence, intimidation, and cover-ups.
Eric Gonzalez has served five months in jail for a parole violation. He claims some jail guards are abusing their authority.
"They don't have to explain to nobody, and they make that very clear to us," he says.
"I'm speaking out for every other inmate who never gets a chance to," Gonzalez explains. "They've abused me so much, they can't do nothing else to me."
His allegations include three or four officers attacking an inmate. He says they kicked him in the face, threw him on the ground, and punched him.
"They'll spray him with mace. They'll cuff him. And then they'll throw him in a room or a holding cell and leave him there for hours," says Gonzalez. "I'm talking about six, seven hours at a time. Cuffed and shackled, where they can't clean their face off."
A former jail guard corroborates allegations of trouble inside the jail.
"There's a lot of things that go on there that the sheriff don't even know about it," say the ex-guard.
He asked us to hide his face and change his name. We'll call him "Rick." He used to work as a Cameron County jail guard. After eight months, he was fired.
"Rick" says he did nothing wrong, and his supervisor had a problem with him.
"They can wash their hands of anybody they want," he tells us.
"Rick" says he saw guards treat inmates worse than animals.
"They can gang up on any inmate they want," he claims.
Like Gonzalez, "Rick" mentioned guards macing inmates.
"For as long as they're maced, it's burning. It's burning 'em, It's burning 'em, It's burning 'em," he says.
"It seemed like torture to me," he tells us.
CHANNEL 5 NEWS asked why someone would do that.
"To have fun I guess," says "Rick."
We spoke to a woman who says her son was one inmate maced by guards.
"They had maced him and they put the mask on his face," she tells us.
The inmate's sister recalls, "He thought he was gonna die. He thought he was gonna die that night."
The two women are hiding their faces for fear of retaliation.
CHANNEL 5 NEWS asked Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio for an explanation about the claims over a month ago.
He said, "No I'm not gonna say anything. Anything. I told you you don't have a story. And I'm not gonna make a story out of that."
He turned down our interview request and warned us not to go any further with our investigation.
In a phone call, he said, "Well, I'm sorry. You do that, Will, then you're gonna be in bad with my office."
His chief deputy Gus Reyna told us if we run the story, CHANNEL 5 NEWS will be stonewalled by the sheriff's office.
CHANNEL 5 NEWS' Will Ripley asked, "We're not gonna get anymore news from you guys?"
"No, you will not," said Reyna.
We showed our recorded phone calls to Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos.
"It never looks good when you don't wanna talk to the media about an issue like this, because right away someone's going to say, 'Well there must be something to hide,'" he says.
Just three days before our investigation aired, the sheriff agreed to answer our questions.
We asked the sheriff if beating, macing, and masking inmates is standard procedure.
"To my knowledge, that does not happen," says Lucio.
He tells us he will look into the claims.
CHANNEL 5 NEWS also asked about the alleged beating of Randal Bolivar. His mother, Mary Rey, says six jail guards and a sergeant brutally beat him.
"It's very difficult to talk about," she tells us.
She showed us Bolivar's medical records for September 19. The documents show Bolivar was "brought to the infirmary in a wheelchair… screaming and crying" after an "altercation."
An ambulance was called and Bolivar was taken to the hospital.
The medical records don't say what started the "fight" or who was involved.
The chief deputy tells us Bolivar assaulted two of his detention guards.
But Bolivar's mother suspects the attack on her son was unprovoked.
"Rick," the former jailer, agrees. He says Bolivar never assaulted anyone.
He was shackled. There's no way he could move. There's no way he could be combative like that," says "Rick."
The sheriff says he doesn't know what happened or why Bolivar ended up in the hospital.
"I don't have that information available," Lucio tells us.
The sheriff adds his staff did nothing wrong.
"We're not dealing with kids from the playground. We're dealing with sometimes hardened criminals," he says.
Bolivar is waiting to go on trial for murder, evading arrest, and causing an injury accident.
"I am well aware of what he's accused of," says Bolivar's mother. "However, he is a human being just like everybody else."
Rey called in a complaint to the Texas Rangers. The Texas Rangers told us they did investigate, but they closed the case without inspecting the jail or talking to any inmates.
They said Bolivar refused to cooperate.
Other allegations about the jail include substandard health care, inmates getting the wrong medication, and guards turning off the water for as long as 27 hours.
"Rick" says most of it is hidden from the sheriff.
"If it's something that is gonna look good on their behalf, it goes to the sheriff's office. If it's something that's gonna look bad on their behalf, it just gets thrown away," he tells us.
We asked Lucio if it's possible there are jail incidents he isn't aware of.
"When you ask possible, anything is possible," he replies.
Lucio adds if they look into an allegation and find something improper, they will file criminal charges.
Male inmates aren't the only ones making allegations of abuse. A former female inmate is also speaking out.
Donna Funke, a 70-year-old retired school teacher, was arrested and booked in Cameron County. She was accused of hitting someone with her golf cart.
Funke says it never happened. She's waiting to go to trial.
She claims she was abused and neglected during her time behind bars. She alleges inmates' medical needs were ignored.
Gail Hanson also reports problems with inmates getting medications. Hanson was a Cameron County jail minister for eight years.
"I always was distressed by the way the inmates were treated," she tells us.
Hanson says she told the sheriff about her concerns, which included a woman having a miscarriage and a woman having a seizure.
"He pretty much told me to mind my own business," she recalls.
"She tried to speak out and she's no longer allowed to go back," says Corinna Spencer-Scheurich, an attorney for the South Texas Civil Rights Project.
They're now suing to get Hanson access to the jail.
The sheriff won't comment about Hanson because of that pending lawsuit. In the past, he said he revoked Hanson's privileges because she was a threat to the safety and security of the jail.
He also said she was too personally involved with inmates.
As for the allegations about the infirmary, he says "I feel the infirmary is a top-notch infirmary."
"We run a professional jail here," he adds.
The county judge tells us he's concerned about allegations of abuse behind bars.
"They still have rights. And those rights must be defended," he tells us.
But he adds jailers also have a hard job.
"They get abused. They get spat on, kicked... And a lot of these jailers hold back quite a bit," he explains.
The sheriff says he has good people in place.
He says if he uncovers evidence his jailers are breaking the rules, he will not tolerate it.
CHANNEL 5 NEWS has learned the Texas Attorney General's Office is investigating at least one allegation of inmate abuse.
We also checked with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. They say routine jail inspections have turned up no major problems.
