WICHITA, Kan. (AP) â A federal jury in Wichita has rejected a man’s claims that his civil rights were violated by the use of a restraining chair when he was held in Sedgwick County’s juvenile detention center.
Jurors returned a verdict Wednesday that discounted all the claims in a lawsuit filed by Brandon Blackmon. He sued as an adult in 2005 over treatment he received at the facility as an 11-year-old while awaiting trial on criminal charges that were later dismissed.
Blackmon contended in the lawsuit that jail employees violated his rights by allegedly shackling him for hours in a prisoner restraining chair as punishment when he was a young boy.
Jurors found that the employees did not use excessive force, nor did they show deliberate indifference to the boy’s mental health needs.