PINELLAS COUNTY, FL \u2014 A corrections deputy was arrested Thursday and fired after punching a hospitalized inmate last month, the Pinellas County Sheriff\u2019s Office said in a news release.<\/p>\n
Inmate George Miller, 56, was arrested May 29 by St. Petersburg police for delony battery, criminal mischief to a place of worshop and burglary of an occupied dwelling. After being unable to make bail, he was held at the Pinellas County Jail pending the resolution of his charges.<\/p>\n
\u201cMiller was known by Pinellas County corrections deputies as being a problematic inmate as he often caused problems with fellow inmates and jail staff,\u201d the sheriff\u2019s office said. <\/p>\n
While in custody, he suffered a medical event on Nov. 20 and was hospitalized for treatment. It was discovered that he needed surgery and, as is standard practice, deputies remained with him at the hospital, the sheriff\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n
According to PCSO policy, MIller was in a single-occupancy room and was required to be restrained while in the hospital bed unless he was actively receiving medical care. <\/p>\n
Deputy James Jones was assigned to guard Miller at the hospital on Dec. 1. <\/p>\n
Jones reported that the inmate was throwing a \u201ctemper tantrum\u201d that night around 8 p.m., the sheriff\u2019s office said. <\/p>\n
Later that night, a registered nurse heard Miller and Jones loudly arguing and she saw the deputy \u201cslam-dunk\u201d punch the inmate in the chest, according to PCSO.<\/p>\n
That same nurse later saw a contusion around Miller\u2019s left cheek and a laceration above his left eye. He told the nurse that Jones \u201cpunched the [expletive] out of me,\u201d the sheriff\u2019s office said. <\/p>\n
The nurse reported the incident to her supervisor, who alerted PCSO. <\/p>\n
An investigation started and evidence showed that Miller didn\u2019t have any injuries prior to the argument with Jones. <\/p>\n
When questioned, Jones alleged that Miller kicked him, which was inconsistent with the investigation, the sheriff\u2019s office said. <\/p>\n
Jones was arrested Jan. 28 and immediately terminated by PCSO. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was simply no lawful reason for Deputy Jones to strike Miller, and in doing so he committed a crime, he committed a battery,\u201d Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said. \u201cDeputy Jones didn\u2019t act as a deputy sheriff should act, he didn\u2019t act professionally and just handle the situation. He lost his temper and he split open Miller\u2019s eye, punched him in the chest and split open his eye, and he has to be accountable for that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PINELLAS COUNTY, FL \u2014 A corrections deputy was arrested Thursday and fired after punching a hospitalized inmate last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-137577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-st-pete","9":"tag-st-pete-headlines","10":"tag-st-pete-news","11":"tag-st-petersburg","12":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","13":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}