Jefferson County pays former inmate $500,000 for falling on his face

Jefferson County authorities have agreed to pay a former inmate $500,000 to settle a 2022 incident in which jail surveillance video shows officers dropping the handcuffed man on his face.

On the night of Nov. 20, 2022, deputies at the Jefferson County Jail escorted Fredrick Fisk, then 53, to a medical observation unit with his hands cuffed behind his back because he was having a mental illness, according to a sheriff’s office incident report.

Surveillance video from the prison shows Fisk standing in the hallway and refusing to move on.

The video has no sound, but the incident report claims Fisk was verbally aggressive and threatened to “spit and said he would kill them all.”

After Fisk refuses to move for about two minutes, the video shows officers grabbing Fisk’s legs, pulling them out from under him and slamming him face-first onto the ground.

When officers rolled Fisk onto his side, the video showed a pool of blood on the ground where his face was.

In the accident report, officers blamed Fisk for the fall, claiming they were trying to force Fisk to his knees so he could wait for wheelchair transport when he turned on them, causing him to fall.

In interviews after the incident, officers and prison staff mentioned hearing an officer brag about the incident. He told people he was “not afraid to take a motherfucker down” and “that jujitsu really works. … the ankle pick worked. That was awesome.”

“You don’t do ankle picks on people in handcuffs,” an officer said in his interview about the incident.

On June 14, Fisk signed a $500,000 settlement with Jefferson County and agreed to waive all legal claims. The settlement was signed by county officials on June 17.

In the agreement, Jefferson County admits no liability for the incident or for any claims Fisk “has or could have asserted in connection with or arising out of the incident.”