Menard CC named in federal lawsuit
<span>A class-action lawsuit filed in federal court on Thursday alleges an Illinois Department of Corrections officer unit referred to as "Orange Crush" rounded up and physically abused inmates at four Illinois prisons between mid-April and July of 2014.</span>
<span>Menard Correctional Center in Chester is one of those named in the lawsuit, with the others being Illinois River Correctional Center, Big Muddy River Correctional Center and Lawrence Correctional Center.</span>
<span>The suit - which was filed in the in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois office in East St. Louis by Chicago-based law firms Uptown People's Law Center and Loevy and Loevy Attorneys at Law - alleges human rights violations, including violation of the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act.</span>
<span>In an email, IDOC spokeswoman Nicole Wilson said the agency "had no comment on pending litigation."</span>
<span>Court documents show Illinois River inmate Demetrius Ross as the plaintiff and the lawsuit names a total of 232 correctional officers as defendants, including 72 from Menard.</span>
<span>According to the Quad-City Times, Ross is serving a 60-year sentence at Illinois River after pleading guilty in 1996 to first-degree murder in the 1994 torture-murder of 35-year-old Hector Muriel of Rock Island.</span>
<span>The alleged offenses named in the suit included strip searches of inmates in front of female correctional officers and orders for inmates to touch their genitals and buttocks and then use the same hand to open their mouths during those searches.</span>
<span>In another described incident at Illinois River, inmates were ordered to march from their housing units to the gym facility so that one man's genitals were in "direct contact" with the buttocks of the man in front of him, a practice Orange Crush officers allegedly called "Nuts to Butts."</span>
<span>Breaking this formation allegedly resulted in violence from the officers.</span>
<span>The suit alleges similar "shakedowns" took place at Menard and Warden Kim Butler, along with the wardens at the other three prisons, is named as a defendant in the suit.</span>
<span>"The painful and humiliating shakedowns inflicted physical injuries - including headaches, dizziness, wrist pain and lower back pain and emotional injuries - including severe embarrassment, fear, stress, trauma and humiliation," the suit stated.</span>
<span>According to the Times of Northwest Indiana, Loevy and Loevy won a $55 million settlement with the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 2010 over illegal strip searches at the Cook County Jail.</span>
<span>Uptown People's Law Center, a nonprofit legal services organization, is currently in settlement negotiations with the state in a separate lawsuit over poor living conditions at the Vienna Correctional Center.</span>
<span>It's been a rough recent few weeks for Menard, which has found its way back into the news thanks to an alleged prison yard inmate-on-inmate brawl that reportedly involved around 25 inmates on March 2 and a prisoner-officer incident on March 13.</span>
<span>State Rep. Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro) called the March 2 fight "gang-related" and has filed a resolution urging Gov. Bruce Rauner to reopen Tamms Correctional Center - which was closed by former Gov. Pat Quinn as a cost-cutting measure in 2013.</span>
<span>When reached by phone, Ty Peterson, staff representative for AFSCME Council 31 (which represents correctional officers at Menard), referred the Herald Tribune's inquiries to AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall.</span>
<span>Messages seeking comment left for Lindall on Monday were not immediately returned.</span>