John Basco Wiki
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An Oklahoma County inmate found dead in his cell over the weekend was a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the county alleging that in 2019, he and other inmates were tortured by jail employees who forced them to repeatedly listen to the nursery rhyme Baby Shark for hours. on end.
John Basco, 48, was found unconscious in his cell early Sunday morning, Oklahoma County Detention Center officials said.
He was pronounced dead after jail workers began life-saving efforts, they explained.
Death
Basco’s death is the 14th this year at the jail, which has faced criticism for inmate deaths, breakouts and other incidents.
John Basco, 48, was found unresponsive in his cell early Sunday morning. He was part of a lawsuit against the jail.
Jail spokesman Mark Opgrande said there were no obvious signs of foul play and investigators will look into the possibility of a drug overdose.
The State Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the cause of death.
Basco, who was booked into jail Thursday on a drug-trafficking allegation, was among a group of inmates who sued the county in federal court for allegedly being handcuffed to a wall and forced to listen to the Baby Shark song repeatedly during hours during separate sessions. incidents in 2019.
A jail lieutenant has retired and two detention officers have been fired in connection with the incidents, with all three facing misdemeanor charges.
Murder
Basco’s attorney, Cameron Spradling, told The Oklahoman he found the circumstances surrounding Basco’s death “disturbing” and asked that all evidence be preserved while the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation’s investigation unfolds.
“I’m really upset about this,” Spradling said. ‘One of Baby Shark’s victims is conveniently dead within three days of her arrival in jail. How does that happen? District Attorney David Prater just lost one of his witnesses for the upcoming criminal trial. For me, this one doesn’t pass the sniff test.
Oklahoma prison records show Basco had a long history of criminal convictions in Oklahoma County dating back to the mid-1990s, primarily for drug, property and firearms offenses.
He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for a second-degree murder conviction in 2000 and was released in 2007, records show.
Baby Shark lawsuit, Daniel Hendrick, Joseph Mitchell
In the Baby Shark lawsuit, Daniel Hendrick, Joseph Mitchell, and John Basco alleged how two officers took them from their cells at the Oklahoma County Detention Center, put them in a ‘standing stress position’ with their arms handcuffed. on their backs and then forced to listen to the popular nursery rhyme on a loop for hours.
The lawsuit called the conduct “tantamount to torture” and said the two police officers involved, Christian Charles Miles and Gregory Cornell Butler Jr., were “riotous, depraved and sadistic.”
He compared the conduct to heavy metal music played at Guantanamo Bay ‘as an ‘enhanced interrogation’ technique to weaken the resolve of Iraqi captives, and cited academic studies on why Pinkfong’s song Baby Shark, which went viral in 2019, it is particularly irritating.
In the lawsuit, attorneys for inmates since released claimed they ‘posed no threat to officers or anyone else’, were ‘obedient’ and ‘not actively resisting any lawful order’ when forced to listen to the music. in November and December 2019.
They claim they were taken from their cells, forced to stand with their arms handcuffed behind their backs, while the Baby Shark song played on a loop for hours.
The lawyers argue that the ‘prolonged detention…under the conditions described herein, amounts to torture, was excessive, and was not rationally related to any legitimate governmental or penological purpose.’
The lawsuit further states: “This history of mistreatment was well known to Jail supervisors, but no action was taken to stop the conduct and no reasonable steps were taken to alleviate the risk of harm to detainees such as Plaintiffs.”
He claims that these actions were ‘open, obvious and repeated’. However, no one from the Oklahoma County, Sheriff’s Office and criminal justice authority stepped in to take corrective action.
‘This exemplifies a deep-seated and systemic failure to train and supervise, regarding the most basic aspects of correctional operations and the constitutional conditions of confinement.’
Failure to address those issues, they added, made them “willfully indifferent to the health and safety of citizens.”
Each of the former detainees was seeking $75,000 in retribution.
Source: https://wikisoon.com/
