Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy Wesley Dean was admittedly agitated and looking to inflict pain on a jail inmate when he wrenched the man’s hand high behind his back, breaking his arm just above the elbow.

After the inmate sued the county, Dean admitted during a sworn deposition that he used excessive force. He apologized for snapping the suspected drunken driver’s humerus bone while using an unsanctioned technique inmates in Southern California jails call “chicken winging.” He also apologized for intentionally stomping on inmate Charles Huntsman’s bare foot six times as he pushed the intoxicated man toward a cell. Dean characterized the incident as a rare, personal lapse, not indicative of department protocol.

“It wasn’t an academy-approved technique,” Dean said of the May 2016 arm-bending, which occurred minutes after Huntsman entered the jail and as a second deputy held the inmate’s other arm. “It’s not a situation I’m proud of.”

The issue has resurfaced repeatedly in recent years in claims for damages filed against the agency, lawsuits and settlements, as well as a recent high-profile critique of the jail system by a civil rights group. How frequently improper control-holds are used on Orange County jail inmates – and how many injuries may result – isn’t clear. Detailed data on complaints involving such encounters wasn’t readily available from the department.

Chicken winging is an imprecise term used by inmates for any type of control-hold in which the arms are swept behind the back and pushed up toward the shoulders. Some versions of the holds are sanctioned by the sheriff’s departments in Orange and San Bernardino counties and other law enforcement agencies. More extreme and often unauthorized versions of the hold include torquing the straightened arms upward away from the back and toward the head, causing the subject to bend over.

Arm-holds have figured in legal claims and court battles – including a $227,000 settlement in the Huntsman case last month – against the Orange County Sheriff’s Department dating back to at least 2008.They were cited prominently in a two-year investigation of the county jail system released in June by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. And a former nurse at the county jail told the Southern California News Group that over-aggressive chicken winging has been used by deputies despite warnings from medical workers that it would harm inmates.

Orange County officials have denied all the claims for damages.

Allegations of chicken winging aren’t limited to Orange County. Last month, inmates at a San Bernardino County jail were given a $2.8 million settlement for abuses that included painful arm-holds. An attorney involved in the award said San Bernardino County sheriff’s employees continue to use improper techniques.

“We’re getting calls that it’s worse than ever before … it’s a form of torture,” Victorville attorney James Terrell said.

While some pain-compliance holds are allowed by Southern California sheriff’s departments, law enforcement officials stress they may not be used to intimidate, harass or provoke inmates. Sheriff’s officials in Orange, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties said all complaints of inmate abuse are taken seriously and investigated.

“Deputies must have an understanding of, and true appreciation for, the limitations of their authority,” said Orange County Assistant Sheriff Bob Peterson. “This is especially true with respect to deputies overcoming resistance while engaged in the performance of their duties.”

The recent allegations involving improper use of control-holds in Orange County jails come as the system continues to grapple with other criticisms of its operations, including the slaying of an inmate in June and the escape of three prisoners in 2016. The U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division is investigating allegations that Orange County deputies and prosecutors systemically misused jailhouse informants and withheld evidence to illegally obtain convictions. And a separate federal probe, triggered by the 2006 murder of an inmate, is examining the workings of the five-jail network.

Jonathan Smith, who served as the U.S. Department of Justice’s top civil rights lawyer until 2015 and is familiar with the department’s investigations of the Orange County jails, said the allegations of improper chicken winging found by Southern California News Group suggest institutional problems may remain within the sheriff’s agency.

“I know the Orange County jail has been under scrutiny. There is some view that it improved,” Smith said, “but it seems they’ve returned to their own bad (practices).”

He heard the arm ‘pop’

Charles Huntsman was driving through Newport Beach shortly after 11 p.m. in May 2016 when the red police lights lit up his rear view mirror. A 33-year-old waiter from Newport Beach with a previous hit-and-run conviction, Huntsman was arrested for driving under the influence and transported to the Intake Release Center at the Orange County Jail in Santa Ana.

He was there fewer than three minutes when he was injured by deputy Dean.

Dean testified that Huntsman cursed at the jailers and disobeyed directions. After watching the video, Dean conceded he gave Huntsman sometimes less than a second to comply with orders and he didn’t feel physically threatened by the inmate. When asked by an attorney why he became so agitated, Dean said that the inmate was fidgety, had wagged his tongue at the deputies and was “more passive-aggressive than anything.”

Dean, a three-year jail veteran, testified he threw Huntsman’s shoe down a corridor because he was frustrated. He stood the inmate up, bent Huntsman’s arm high behind his back, marched him down the hallway and thrust him against a wall, breaking his arm. After Dean heard Huntsman’s arm “pop,” the deputy and his supervisors failed to file a use-of-force report, although Dean acknowledged department policy required him to do so. Dean testified he knew he had defied the rules and heard Huntsman screaming in pain, complaining his arm had been broken.

Experts in police use-of-force techniques say the string of inmate abuse complaints in Orange County – 17 damage claims and lawsuits, including six involving arm-holds since June 2014 – is troublesome.

“You’ll get compliance a lot quicker, but if you go high enough, their shoulders will go out of their sockets,” said George Wright, a criminal justice professor at Santa Ana College and a former U.S. Treasury agent. “You wouldn’t teach it and, if you saw somebody do it, you’d correct them.”

Smith, the former federal justice department civil rights lawyer, said the injury caused by deputy Dean was particularly concerning.

“You know what force it takes to break somebody’s arm? It’s a huge amount of force,” said Smith, now the executive director of the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.

According to the ACLU, improper chicken winging occurs throughout Southern California.

In July, nearly 40 inmates at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga were given the $2.8 million settlement from San Bernardino County after they alleged sheriff’s deputies frequently chicken-winged them and used Tasers without provocation.

One current inmate who was not involved in the lawsuit, William Hernandez, 53, of Big Bear, said abusive arm-holds continue to be used at the detention center despite the recent settlement.

“They grab guys and practically tear their arms off behind their backs. They chicken wing them,” said Hernandez, who is awaiting sentencing for rape and burglary.

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Lt. Sarkis Sohannessian said deputies there do not apply rear control-holds in a manner that will injure inmates or suspects.

“We do not train in elevating the hand so much as to inflict injury or ‘torture,'” Sohannessian said. “These statements (by inmates) are one-sided and our deputies are not trained in ‘chicken winging’ to injure, nor is it an approved technique by our agency.”

ACLU jail coordinator Esther Lim said her organization receives many complaints from inmates at Los Angeles County detention facilities, who regularly report chicken winging involving excessive force. Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials say deputies in that agency are taught only to use enough force to control the subject.

Chicken winging, also known as “pretzeling,” is cited frequently in the ACLU of Southern California’s June critique of Orange County’s jails, which described numerous allegations of excessive force by deputies against inmates. At least 10 of the 120 inmates interviewed for the report said they experienced or witnessed deputies twisting inmates’ arms behind their backs, inflicting pain.

“Incarcerated individuals reported that the technique is used when no force is needed and in circumstances where far less severe force was appropriate and sufficient,” the ACLU wrote.

One female inmate reported seeing deputies beat incoming inmates, several of whom were chicken-winged and “pushed around” for no apparent reason, according to the ACLU report.

Citing the report’s findings, the ACLU called for Sheriff Sandra Hutchens to resign immediately. Hutchens stunned department observers by announcing retirement plans that same day, although she said her decision had nothing to do with the allegations. Hutchens rejected the ACLU report’s findings, saying the authors relied on questionable accounts by former inmates and failed to interview department staff.

Hutchens also said the 120 people interviewed by the ACLU were only a small portion of the 350,000 inmates who passed through the county’s jails over the past six years.

Five of six claims and lawsuits against the county over the past three years that allege abusive arm-holds describe nearly identical scenarios: A person is arrested for driving intoxicated and taken to jail, where they are abused for small or imagined slights, such as looking around or having difficulty following directions.

That’s what Alison Boroch, a 41-year-old Trabuco Canyon entrepreneur, said happened to her in May 2015.

Boroch, who owns a graphic design firm, sued the county in December, saying her one-night stay in jail left her with an aching arm and a bloody head. Boroch was originally supposed to be cited and released on her own recognizance on suspicion of drunken driving, according to court documents. But during booking, deputies became impatient with the woman when she didn’t hand them her socks and later when she argued with jailers about taking out her belly ring, according to a deputy’s sworn deposition.

Security videos show deputies Olivia Coco and Terra Carrillo flanking Boroch, yanking her arms behind her back, forcing her down a hallway as she grimaces in pain. “Both arms, shoulders feel like they are being dislocated,” Boroch later testified. “I’m involuntarily shrieking due to the pain.” Coco and Carrillo didn’t file a use-of-force report. Coco testified later that she and Carrillo used a sanctioned control-hold and not force requiring a report.

In a sworn deposition, Coco testified she had ordered Boroch to face the wall and that when the woman turned her head for a moment, the deputy feared Boroch was preparing to attack. She added that Boroch was overreacting, had a “smart-ass attitude,” and jailers couldn’t allow other inmates to think they could act similarly “aggressive or disrespectful.”

“You could barely put your hand on somebody and just put your hand on their shoulder and they scream and they act like you’re attacking them,” Coco said during the deposition. “I didn’t think (Boroch’s experience) was traumatic at all.” The case is awaiting trial.

Coco and Carrillo also were accused of using excessive force on Elena Grant, 49, of Newport Beach, the founder of an online medical-supply store. Grant sued the county in 2015, alleging that the two deputies injured her while booking her for suspected drunken driving in April 2014. The case is currently in trial.

In the security video of Grant’s booking, three female deputies suddenly grab her, raise her arms behind her back and march her down a long hallway. Grant can be seen contorting in pain.

The county said in court documents that Grant failed to comply with orders and deputies placed her in a routine control-hold.

A former jail worker, who has filed a federal workplace discrimination complaint against the department, also alleged in an interview that deputies regularly use excessive force, including chicken winging, in Orange County jails.

Jennifer Westfield, 31, a licensed vocational nurse who resigned from the jail in December, said in an interview that during seven years treating Orange County inmates, she saw them chicken-winged frequently, and witnessed a deputy break a man’s arm while using the technique. During that incident, Westfield alleged, jail supervisors scrambled to explain the fracture, asking nurses if they could find evidence the man had a history of osteoporosis or other health disorders.

When some nurses confronted deputies about the harms of twisting and wrenching inmates’ arms, Westfield said they were rebuffed and criticized for speaking out.

“They go off on us,” Westfield said. “You will get totally disrespected by the deputies after that. Those nurses are then labeled…It’s known that if you speak against the deputies, that you will be labeled as a snitch, and you carry that reputation.”

Two other retired nurses interviewed by the Southern California News Group said they did not see anything improper with the deputies’ handling of inmates and never experienced intimidation.

Institutional failures

In 2009, Orange County paid Newport Beach real estate broker Jeff Pittman a $20,000 settlement after he alleged deputies wrestled him to the ground with an arm-hold maneuver, choked him and used a Taser on him while booking him into jail for suspicion of drunken driving. Pittman’s attorney Thomas Beck said deputies yanked his client’s arms backward until they rose above his head, causing “intense pain.”

That complaints of improper chicken winging continue to emerge should be a cause for concern and close scrutiny, some experts said.



“If it happens routinely at any given jail, it speaks to the culture of the workforce, and it’s the responsibility of the jail to set that culture,” said Martin F. Horn, a distinguished lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

Dean, the deputy who admitted improperly using the hold that broke Huntsman’s arm, testified he was interviewed by internal affairs and later suspended for three days. Dean also explained that he later completed three days of routine, annually required training for deputies working the jails, including refresher instruction on how to properly perform control-holds.

But he testified he wasn’t asked or required to take additional training for breaking Huntsman’s arm. By April, he added, he was working patrol duty – generally considered a better assignment among deputies.