Former Elmore County, Alabama, Sheriff’s Deputy Blake Hicks, 33, was sentenced Monday to two years and five months in prison for brutally beating a handcuffed suspect, according to federal officials.
Hicks admitted to depriving an arrestee of his civil rights under color of law.
(Video of the police beating allegedly shows Hicks stomping and kicking Quinn)
According to documents and statements made in court, Hicks willfully used unreasonable force against an arrestee, Tristen Quinn.
Quinn, then 25, was pulled over by Wetumpka police officers that night on a traffic stop for having a tag light out. Hicks and another Elmore deputy went to the scene as backup.
Specifically, without legal justification, Hicks punched and kicked Quinn in or around the head while Quinn was handcuffed and incapacitated on the ground Quinn suffered a broken cheekbone, concussion and lacerations from Hicks’ assault.
Quinn’s attorney, Andrea Hatchcock, said Hicks is the officer who can be seen on the security footage stomping, punching and kicking him, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.
“This defendant had a duty to respect the rights of people in his custody and to keep them safe,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Instead, he violently assaulted a person under arrest who was not resisting or threatening harm to the defendant or the public.”
The FBI Mobile Field Office investigated the case.
Trial Attorney Laura-Kate Bernstein, Special Litigation Counsel Michael J. Songer of the Civil Rights Division, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Counts for the Middle District of Alabama are prosecuting the case.