WHAS 11 News – by Renee Murphy
NEW ALBANY, Ind. (WHAS11) — Serious allegations have been made against the Floyd County Jail in Southern Indiana.
WHAS11 has learned that the jail has launched an internal investigation into what happened in the video above.
It was March when Tabitha Gentry was arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Both are misdemeanors.
“I was embarrassed humiliated scared. That’s all that goes through your head when stuff happens like that,” Gentry said.
In the video that Gentry’s attorney provided, it shows her in custody at the Floyd County jail. There is no audio but it appears she said something to authorities and tries to get up. That’s when deputies try and subdue her.
Then you see a male and female deputies carry her into what appears to be a cell. She’s handcuffed and held down and that’s when Gentry’s attorney said her clothes are forced off.
“I believe this is a form of submission through humiliation,” attorney Laura Landenwich said.
Landenwich represents Gentry and plans to file a federal lawsuit against the county.
She said an inmate should never be denied clothes.
“The constitution prohibits this conduct. She is innocent at this point under our system of law,” Landenwich said.
The video shows that Gentry sat in jail nude from 4:14 a.m. until 10:58 a.m.
While she sat there Gentry also said she was pepper sprayed.
The Floyd County Sheriff did not go on camera but he said he has not seen the video yet. He said his staff has told him about the incident and no policies were violated and the staff didn’t do anything wrong.
WHAS11 did an investigation in September about another similar allegation at the Floyd County Jail.
Ashley Storms filed suit against Floyd County when she said deputies removed her clothes.
Video from that case was also provided by Landenwich, who represented Storms as well.
Floyd County Sheriff Darrell Mills said that case was settled.
That is nothing. Were I use to live in America the police would beat you far worse than that and frame you just for speaking to them. And the Judges were nothing but back pocket boys for the police there. She was lucky they have a good police department there compaired to most in America today.