R. Scott Moxley blogged earlier today about the Orange County Board of Supervisors contemplating spending $750,000 on public relations aimed at improving recycling participation–after already having spent $1.25 million in taxpayer
funds on recycling PR since 2008.
Maybe county check writers are enamored with the number $750,000.
That is also the amount the county paid to settle a personal
injury claim against an Orange County inmate who was handcuffed while deputies kneed him in the head and repeatedly shocked him with a
stun gun.
Matthew Ryan Fleuret was being held at the men's
jail on March 18, 2006, after being arrested for being in a bar fight, according to an Orange County Register from 2008.
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Jennifer Muir and Tony Saavedra have the scoop on the settlement on the Register's OC Watchdog blog, which also includes jailhouse video of Fleuret pushing his way
out of his
cell, prompting several deputies tackling him to the ground.
Jailers justified their use of force due to Fleuret breaching security and being intoxicated and combative. But the video shows one deputy in particular driving
a knee into the back of Fleuret's head, forcing the inmate's arms above
his back and refusing a
supervisor's suggestion to let go.
Perhaps the county check writer was watching it as he or she filled out all those zeroes in $750,000.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.