Three Placer County sheriff\u2019s officials were arrested Wednesday on charges involving allegations of excessive force against at least six jail inmates and falsifying evidence, the result of what Sheriff Devon Bell is calling \u201can extensive investigation\u201d that included video recordings and other evidence.<\/p>\n
The arrests of corrections Sgt. Megan Yaws, Deputy Robert Madden and corrections Officer Jeffrey Villanueva came after a probe that began with a supervisor reviewing routine video footage from the Placer County jail in Auburn, the sheriff\u2019s department said in an announcement. After the initial review of video indicated evidence of abuse, \u201cmanagement discovered other incidents and determined actions of the officers appeared unreasonable,\u201d the statement said. \u00a0\u201cThis is sad and unfortunate,\u201d he said, stressing that the \u201cconduct was limited to a very small number of people\u201d and that the department discovered the incidents on its own.<\/p>\n
Sheriff Bell appeared to choke up as he discussed the arrests at an afternoon press conference, saying the abuse apparently began in November and was first detected two weeks ago. \u201cWe discovered this ourselves,\u201d he said. \u201cWe investigated it … and we made arrests.\u201d \u00a0Officials said the routine review of videos two weeks ago did not match up with a use of force report, sparking further investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt raised some red flags to the point where we started pulling video to see if there was a pattern,\u201d Bell said.<\/p>\n
The three department employees were arrested at their homes on Wednesday and had been placed on administrative duties earlier away from inmates…<\/p>\n
According to the statement from Bell\u2019s department, \u201cDeputy Madden is charged with four counts of assault under color of authority, without necessity, and three counts of falsification of an incident report. C.O. Villanueva is charged with one count of assault under color of authority, without necessity, and one count of falsification of an incident report. C.O. Sgt. Yaws is charged with one count of falsifying police reports. There is video and other evidence to support these arrests.\u201d…<\/p>\n
Bail for Madden was set at $100,000, for Villanueva at $75,000 and for Yaws at $15,000…<\/p>\n
\u201cMegan has more than 10 years of experience in corrections, most of that time working for the El Dorado County Sheriff\u2019s Office,\u201d the post stated. \u201cShe started here 1 \u00bd years ago, and in that short amount of time she became a Jail Training Officer (JTO) and she frequently works as a shift supervisor.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn El Dorado County, Megan was a JTO, worked in the Gang and Classification Units, and served as a shift supervisor and transport officer.\u201d…<\/p>\n
Read more here:\u00a0http:\/\/www.sacbee.com\/news\/local\/crime\/article153602104.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Three Placer County sheriff\u2019s officials were arrested Wednesday on charges involving allegations of excessive force against at least<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","darknews-slider-full":"","darknews-featured":"","darknews-medium":"","darknews-medium-square":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"News MoLo","author_link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/author\/admin\/"},"category_info":"Crime<\/a>","tag_info":"Crime","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5950"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5951,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5950\/revisions\/5951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}