Man dies in Civil Commitment After Being Beaten by Officers
The family of Darrell Smith is suing the state after he was beaten to a near comatose state by a group of correctional officers at the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Avenel. The center is New Jersey’s civil commitment center, where people are held indefinitely after completing their sentence.
The beating was described as “gang-style” and even after he was left in a catatonic state, officers at the facility waited five days before taking him to the hospital, where he died two days later.
Mr. Smith completed his sentence in 2016, but has been involuntarily confined at the NJ Civil Commitment Center under a controversial law that allows the state to hold a person indefinitely even after the completion of their sentence. Currently 20 states (District of Columbia, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin) have such laws.
If Smith wasn’t in New Jersey or if the government abolished this cruel form of punishment, he would be alive today.
the wonderful thing about being “government” is you can make laws but don’t have to follow them. People are never bright enough to figure out they outnumber the criminal government and could put an end to it any time they wanted to..
over one million people on the registry. Each with at least one friend and each with at least one family member that cares.. 3 million people could stop the criminal government in its criminal tracks.. if they wanted to..
Just more non punishment , Punishment by the Gestapo. These officers need to be arrested, charged, tried and convicted for murder.
Even if this man did not complete his sentence and was serving a life sentence, there is no excuse for this. I went through a similiar incident. The guards came into my cell to beat me. I started praying and suddenly they got a call of a riot on the yard and they went yelling.
I knew they would be back so I prayed again. I had not seen a soul in days but suddenly the chaplin appeared out of nowhere. I told him I needed to call my parents and said what happened. He said he would call them for me. I said it was an emergency.
Within 15 minutes the prison investigator had me pulled into her office and shut the door. The investigator was a SHE and she was blunt with me. She stated these guys have killed several inmates and gotten away with it and stated the chaplin had called my parents and they were on the phone and wanted to speak to me to see if I was ok or they were calling a lawyer and the news.
The next day I was moved to another facility. The Lord saved me , otherwise I would have become another statistic. As a side note, I did NOTHING to provoke the officers other than being a convicted sex offender. They had no knowledge or personal connection to me.
They were acting as executioners. The system just kept letting them get away with it. I am sure NOTHING happened to them other than a notation in their files. I cannot even imagine how many other inmates they beat after attempting to beat me. I do know from what the investigator said they had either beat up or killed several other inmates over the years.
The deaths were always covered up as the “Officers defending themselves”. How do 5 officers get attacked by an inmate who is locked behind a cage??????????
One other note, I told the investigator I challenge all those officers to take an FBI polygraph and I would take one as well and swim circles around them. She said that would not be necessary as she 1000% believed me and they all had union reps who would refuse the tests anyway.
THIS happens WAY more than is reported.
Those guards and everything about them needs to be disseminated to our community so that other registered citizens and their families know who those criminals are and so that the same criminals know we are watching them. Atrocities mention here can only occur and be repeated without consequence if they can do so in darkness. Remove the the protection by shining light on the guards and thing will change.
The victim had no death sentence, but that was the result by a corrupt state system.
Are they investigating the beating ? What triggered these officers ?
So what are they going to say now?? Since civil commitment is neither punishment nor incarceration, does that mean that Mr. Smith is not actually “dead”, but just “no longer alive”? Or “deceased”? Or “no longer with us”? What euphemism do they use for someone who has been murdered?? No, civil commitment IS continued punishment and Mr. Smith IS dead and he was MURDERED by those corrections goons!! 😡
As sad as this is it happens every day in a different prison with the guards usually getting off because they stick together and say the inmate deserved his beating. i wish the family luck in the suit but i am not optimistic in their success
And other inmates are most likely too scared to talk or expose them.
I hope they go after the officers civilly too. I don’t blame them for suing. I’d sue them evey way possible..
Names and addresses would be nice.
A little quid pro quo.
Return on their investments.
😉
Sexual Civil Commitment needs to be eliminated. This is a very unfair law, therefore, if we commit sex offenders, them we should also commit, murders, all assaults, ETC. To keep a person locked up after he serves his sentence because, you think he will commit another sex offense is wrong. There is no way you can tell what a person is thinking, on less you are inside of his mind.
I had a similar situation with correction officers at the same commitment center asDarrell Smith I was assaulted by a female officer by being sprayed with bleach and after I went crazy verbally but never threatening I was locked in my cell due to a code and beaten and dragged naked out my cell taken to shower cause I was sprayed with pepper spray and taken to medical for treatment then placed in lock up. I was then investigated and criminally charged for terroristic threats, obstruction of administrative law, assaulting seven correction officers and resisting arrest. After going to trial I was found not guilty of resisting arrest and assaulting officers but was found guilty ofterroistic threats and obstruction and recurved a 4 year sentence the obstruction was ran concurrent. After serving 14 months I was paroled back to civil commitment and then in February 2018 I won my appeal and got my conviction overturned and ultimately was found not guilty . The appeallete court really had a big problem with the officers testamoney their testamoney contradicted parts of vedio tape evidence these officers committed purjury and still working as correction officers as if noughting ever happened. Yes I agree if you can commit a crime like purjury then you should be punished for it. I to am suing the state and officials responsible.
Robert Meyer
You like myself, how do we get our time back we served when a sentence that we already served is reversed? I went to court and got an appeals judge to throw out the remaining part of my sentence due to lies made up by law enforcement. I asked 3 times for a lawyer and was told if I got a lawyer, they would go to the news and do a 1/2 special on me while sitting in front of my parents home.
Well they could give me mine back by letting me off the registry. But seems that will never happen even though registry did not even exist when I was arrested.
Robert, I pray you get some justice.