GRANT COUNTY, N.M. — A New Mexico police officer says workers at the county detention center left him locked in a room at the jail facility with an arrestee as retaliation over a conflict about getting medical clearance for the person he was booking.
Officer Kyle Spurgeon of the Silver City Police Department filed the lawsuit against the Grant County Detention Center. He wants the organization to change some of its policies after his conflict with county personnel, KRQE reported.
According to Spurgeon, the conflict began when a jail worker instructed him to drive the arrestee to a hospital to get medically cleared before the jail would accept him for booking.
“I need you to go to the hospital and don’t refuse (treatment),” the health services administrator is heard saying on a video to the arrestee.
It was not clear why the facility was requiring medical clearance, something that is not an unusual request when a person has an obvious medical issue. However, some county jails demand it for medical issues as innocuous as high blood pressure, according to a Law Officer staff member.
Spurgeon refused to take the DUI suspect to the hospital for clearance, saying the man already refused medical treatment (for unspecified needs).
“I can’t use my authority to force a burden on somebody,” the officer explained. It was shortly after that when he was reportedly locked in the room, KRQE reported.
“This is enough of this and I want out of here,” Spurgeon is heard saying in his lapel video from 2019. He claims he was locked in the booking area of the jail for about 45 minutes while unarmed and with the DUI suspect he was trying to book at the facility.
Finally, once the suspect agreed to have Spurgeon take him to the hospital, the staff let them leave. However, during the process, things got testy.
“You’ve got to follow our policy,” one corrections officer said.
“Your policies don’t trump state law,” Spurgeon responded.
“Yes, they do, sir. Yes, they do. Try me. Try me!” the corrections officer said.
Once they left and were on the way to the hospital, Spurgeon told the arrestee that he still didn’t have to get checked out medically, according to KRQE.
“Whenever we get down there, it’s up to you still,” Spurgeon said.
In his lawsuit, Spurgeon wants the jail to update its medical clearance practices and take responsibility for minor medical issues, according to his attorney, Laura Schauer Ives.
“They can do the job the taxpayers pay them to do and medically clear prisoners. They can take an arrestee to the hospital themselves,” Ives said. “They can basically seek a court order conceding that their medical unit is so deficient that they can’t have a particular prisoner.”
Spurgeon tried unsuccessfully to get the district attorney’s office to file charges of false imprisonment.
