A Mountain Home man who alleges fellow inmates beat him up and staff ignored him while he was locked up in the Baxter County jail has filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court for the Western District of Arkansas.
Thirty-one-year-old Steven Ray Gauger contends that in the early morning hours of June 18, 2019, he was “attacked and beaten unconscious by multiple inmates out of sight of guards and security cameras.”
Gauger’s suit contends that Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery “facilitated an unsafe environment” by putting inmates in an area that could not be properly guarded and did not have video surveillance available. These conditions, Gauger alleges, resulted “in unmonitored near deadly inmate-on-inmate attacks.”
He says, despite serious injuries, including broken bones in one of his eye sockets and other “severe head injuries,” he went without medical attention for 10-12 hours.
Gauger alleges jail staff did not check on him, provide medical treatment or offer him food for hours following the attack.
He says after the attack, he was taken out of his cell in C-Pod and transported to the court complex for an appearance in Baxter County Circuit Court.
In his suit, which was filed in mid-June, Gauger says he was handcuffed to a bench outside the courtroom for two hours until it was decided he needed to be transported to Baxter Health.
After arriving at the local hospital, he says he was transferred to Mercy Hospital in Springfield. Gauger says he underwent treatment at Mercy, but that he still needs reconstructive surgery to repair damage to the bone structure of the eye socket.
In the federal court lawsuit, Gauger says he wants the court to consider his past medical bills and related expenses that were incurred because of his “negligent” treatment at the jail.
While no damage figure is mentioned in the filing, Gauger says he wants the court to also consider damages for pain and suffering.
Gauger contends he was released from custody before a complaint could be filed about the incident and an investigation undertaken to discover what had happened and who was involved.
The suit was filed against Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery, the Baxter County Detention Center and, as currently filed, a group referred to as “unknown jailers.”
The jail was removed as defendant by the court “because it is a building and not a person subject to suit.”
Gauger has requested and received a list of employees working at the jail during the time of the attack. The court has ordered him to look at the list and “name as defendants only those individuals who personally violated his federal constitutional rights.”
He is to return that list to the court by September 16 indicating specific staff members to take the place of individuals now referred to only as “unknown jailers.”
Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery has filed an initial answer to the suit in his personal capacity, denying Gaugers allegations and requesting a jury trial.
Gauger has been in and out of the jail through the years on a variety of charges. Most of his cases dealt with theft, theft by receiving and breaking or entering. Many of the cases were dismissed and cases in which revocation petitions were filed because Gauger had violated the terms and conditions of his probation were reduced to contempt of court or dismissed entirely.
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