Please attribute the following statement to Hector Villagra, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California: "Today’s federal indictments of Sheriff’s Deputies Joey Aguiar and Mariano Ramirez come as no surprise to us.
The ACLU Foundation of Southern California has led the way in exposing the corruption and abuse of power in the Los Angeles County Jails. We shed much-needed light on the plague of beatings in a scathing report issued in 2011. That report contained affidavits from more than 70 witnesses, which included civilians and Chaplin Paulino Juarez, who witnessed the savage beatings of inmates.
The deputies indicted today brutally beat an inmate as Chaplain Juarez watched. He shared gruesome details with the world in this video we released in 2011:
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Many civilian witnesses gave accounts of the horrific beatings they saw, yet this jail system afforded sheriff’s deputies complete impunity for their using unnecessary and brutal force.
Sheriff’s deputies, under the leadership of former Sheriff Lee Baca, may have gotten away with the abuse for many years, but now justice is being served. ACLU SoCal will remain vigilant to ensure the corruption and abuse is rooted out and becomes a part of the past never to be repeated again."