“He lost his cool, he lost his temper, punched him in the chest,” Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said of a detention deputy who was arrested and fired.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A Pinellas County detention deputy was arrested and fired after investigators say he punched a restrained inmate in the chest and face while guarding him at a hospital.
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said it happened Dec. 1 at HCA Florida Northside Hospital in St. Petersburg, where Deputy James Jones, 66, was assigned to watch inmate George Miller.
During his shift, Jones told supervisors that Miller was throwing what he described as a “temper tantrum.”
Gualtieri said Miller had been in custody since May and was known to be a difficult inmate.
“From the time that Miller entered the jail, he was known as a problematic inmate,” Gualtieri said. “He would often cause problems with staff, mouth off to deputies and taunt other inmates.”
About two hours after Deputy Jones reported the “temper tantrum,” Sheriff Gualteri said a nurse heard a shouting match between Miller and Jones.
When she looked into the hospital room, the nurse said she saw Jones punch Miller with a closed fist in the middle of his chest.
The nurse later noticed Miller had a contusion on his left cheek and a laceration above his eye. According to the sheriff, when asked what happened, Miller told the nurse that Jones “punched the s**t out of me.” The nurse reported the incident to her supervisors.
Gualtieri said that when asked about the incident the next day by his lieutenant, Deputy Jones claimed Miller had kicked and struck him. The sheriff said the evidence does not support that account, calling Jones’ statements inconsistent with the facts and saying Jones lied to his lieutenant.
“So just to put it in the simplest of terms,” Gualtieri said, “Deputy Jones got into an argument with an obstinate inmate restrained in a hospital bed. He lost his temper and punched the inmate in the chest and face, splitting open the inmate’s forehead above his eye.”
Gualtieri said there was no lawful reason for the use of force.
“There is simply no lawful reason for Deputy Jones to strike Miller, and in doing so, he committed a crime. He committed a battery,” the sheriff said.
Jones was arrested Wednesday night on one count of battery, booked into the Pinellas County Jail and later released after posting $1,000 bond. Gualtieri said Jones was fired immediately following his arrest.
“You’ve got mouthy inmates — we’ve got 3,200 of them sitting out there,” Gualtieri said. “He just needed to be professional and handle it. But he lost his cool. He lost his temper.”
