Cheswick man sues Allegheny County, claims jail guards stood by while he was stabbed
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Shawn Daniels had just attended Mass at the Allegheny County Jail and returned to his cell on Pod 3C the evening of June 5, when, he said, two other inmates entered his cell and attacked him.
Daniels, of Cheswick, was stabbed nearly 40 times, police said, with an orange spork that had been fashioned into a shank using a nail.
Daniels, who was hospitalized for nearly a week, on Wednesday sued Allegheny County and the two corrections officers he said opened the door to his cell to allow his attackers in.
Daniels is alleging civil rights violations and a failure to protect.
A county spokeswoman had no comment.
The officers who are named as defendants, Joseph Parker and Juan Donato, continue to work at the jail.
Keyjuan King and Kesean Proctor, the two men accused in the attack, were charged by police with aggravated assault and related counts and are scheduled for trial in February.
‘You gonna die’
Daniels, 42, was being held at the jail awaiting trial on his fifth drunken driving arrest.
According to the lawsuit, despite being charged with a non-violent offense, Daniels was being held in a maximum security pod with violent detainees.
He told police that he had been in his cell getting ready to shower when two men he didn’t know rushed in. Police identified them as King and Proctor.
King, 25, was being held on weapons charges and unlawful restraint, according to court records, and Proctor, 20, was awaiting trial on firearms charges.
Both men had previous convictions.
“Defendants had actual knowledge that both King and Proctor were dangerous to other inmates, including Daniels,” the lawsuit said.
According to the lawsuit, around 6:15 p.m. Proctor and King motioned to Parker and Donato to open Daniels’ cell door.
When the two entered, they immediately placed a towel over the cell window to block the view and attacked Daniels, the lawsuit said.
Proctor and King bound Daniels’ hands and legs behind his back and assaulted him for 39 minutes, the lawsuit said, including stabbing him 37 times with the shank, punching and kicking him.
“‘You gonna die,’” the men told him repeatedly, police said.
According to the lawsuit, the motive for the attack was to extort money from Daniels.
Near the end of the assault, the lawsuit said, King and Proctor called Daniels’ daughter from his jail-issued tablet, demanding that she send them $1,000 through Cash App, police said.
She immediately suspected something was wrong and asked to speak to her father.
According to the criminal complaint, King and Proctor refused to put Daniels on the video screen. Eventually, the call ended, and she called her mother, telling her she thought her father was being attacked.
The mother called the jail at 7 p.m. and spoke to an officer.
“She advised (the officer) that she believed Daniels was being murdered in his cell,” the lawsuit said.
The officer contacted Parker and Donato and asked that they check Daniels’ cell.
“In the 39 minutes that Daniels was being brutalized in his cell, Parker and Donato would have done a number of cell checks on the pod, would have walked past his cell at least three times and would (have) seen the towel covering it, in violation of ACJ policy,” the lawsuit said. “They did nothing to intervene, in violation of ACJ policy, which would have required them to investigate … when the window is obstructed.”
According to the criminal complaint, Proctor and King left the cell at 6:54 p.m. The lawsuit alleges that Daniels remained in his cell for another 30 minutes until two other officers discovered him.
He was taken to Allegheny General Hospital.
Evidence recovered
According to the criminal complaint filed against King and Proctor, investigators recovered video surveillance footage from inside the jail that shows the men entering Daniels’ cell that night.
They also recovered a pair of white New Balance shoes from Proctor that were covered in blood, as well as boxers and a thermal, long-sleeved shirt found in a garbage can near the shower area that had blood on them.
Video footage showed King wearing the shirt — with blood visible — as he entered the shower area. When he left, he no longer had it on, police said.
Video footage also showed Proctor throwing clothing away near the shower.
When investigators entered Daniels’ cell that night, they found clothing and trash spread across the floor, as well as blood on the floor, walls and toilet.
Daniels’ jail tablet, which recorded the call with his daughter, was also recovered by investigators.
In the recording, a man can be heard asking Daniels’ daughter for money. She refused to comply and asked to speak with her father. Daniels’s voice is raspy in the call, police said, and he was breathing heavily.
“He only states that he needs her to send the money right now, and that it is an emergency,” the criminal complaint said.
Daniels pleaded with his daughter to send the money, but she continued to refuse.
In an interview with police, Daniels described the weapon used to attack him as a nail attached to an orange spork with a piece of red cloth fashioned into a handle.
Officers found the red cloth and a bent orange spork in Daniels’ cell on the floor, the complaint said.
Police said King and Proctor also stole a few hundred dollars worth of commissary items from Daniels’ cell.
The lawsuit includes claims for civil rights violations, including failure to protect, and failure to properly classify inmates and train officers.
It also alleges that jail policy precludes corrections officers from allowing others access to someone’s cell, and that Parker and Donato should have immediately investigated when the window was covered.
The lawsuit asserts that Donato and Parker were disciplined for their failure to intervene, but a county spokeswoman could not confirm that Thursday.
King and Proctor have both been charged with multiple offenses related to the attack, including aggravated assault, unlawful restraint, possessing instruments of crime, tampering with evidence, robbery and conspiracy.
They are scheduled for trial before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Susan Evashavik DiLucente on Feb. 3.
Daniels pleaded guilty to DUI on Nov. 18 and was ordered to pay a $1,500 fine, serve one to seven years in prison with immediate parole and undergo a drug and alcohol evaluation.
Similar incident
The lawsuit asserts that Daniels’ assault was not an isolated incident.
According to the filing, another person incarcerated on Pod 3D was attacked by three other men in a similar fashion later that month.
Criminal complaints filed in that case against Dejour Tarrant, Donald Alexander and D’Mon Brown, accuse them of entering a man’s cell on June 24 looking for drugs.
Police said the three entered cell number 126, and held a home-made weapon — a metal blade with a handle — to the victim’s neck.
The victim was then pinned to his bed and assaulted.
The suspects then stole various food items that the victim had purchased from the commissary.
The men are charged with robbery, simple assault, false imprisonment and conspiracy.
They are scheduled for a nonjury trial on Dec. 3.
Bethany Hallam, a member of the Jail Oversight Board, called corrections’ officers alleged actions the night of the assault against Daniels “wholly unacceptable.”
“Whoever was on duty should be fired. Whoever was overseeing that shift should be fired,” she said. “This is a complete and total failure from top to bottom, and one of the reasons these sort of horrors continue unabated is that there is literally zero accountability for anyone who actually holds responsibility and authority in these situations.”
Hallam said the board was notified of the attack in June shortly after it occurred, and members received a report on the incident. However, they have gotten no additional information since then.
“The root of this all is, however, that no one is ever going to be safe in the ACJ, and the answer is to reduce the population as much as possible,” she said.