BENTON – U.S. District Judge Staci Yandle certified a class action for 9,871 men on March 26, on a claim of cruel and unusual punishment in Illinois prisons.
Her order applies to contraband searches by tactical teams at Menard, Illinois River, Big Muddy, and Lawrence correctional centers in 2014.
Plaintiffs claim 17 defendants subjected them to humiliating and unsanitary searches, painful handcuffing, and hours of standing or sitting.
Inmates called the teams Orange Crush.
“Prior to the 2014 shakedowns, tactical teams were typically used in situations where force was required, such as cell extractions and riots,” Yandle wrote.
She found officers wore orange jumpsuits, vests, gloves, and helmets with face shields, and carried batons, pepper spray, flashlights, and radios.
“Their uniform made it difficult to identify individual officers and they displayed no identifying insignia or name badges,” she wrote.
Plaintiffs claim tactical teams entered living units while yelling and banging batons on bars and railings.
They also claim officers ordered them to strip, manipulate their genitals and buttocks, and put their hands in their mouths; directed them to wear shirts and pants but no underwear; handcuffed them behind their backs in a painful position with thumbs up and palms out; marched them to holding areas in “nuts to butts” fashion, pushing and shoving them to ensure physical contact with other inmates and that they remained in holding areas for hours while officers searched cells.
Yandle found plaintiffs met all requirements for a class action.
“Plaintiffs allege defendants uniformly engaged in conduct and implemented the same or similar procedures at each of the four institutions where the orange crush shakedowns took place,” she wrote.
“Their claims arise under the same constitutional requirements and require resolution of key common factual and legal questions.”
She wrote that an answer to whether defendants carried out a policy that deprived them of Eighth Amendment rights wouldn’t require individual consideration.
Shakedowns occurred at Menard from April 4 to April 16, 2014.
They occurred at Illinois River from April 21 to April 29.
They occurred at Big Muddy from May 12 to May 19.
They occurred at Lawrence from July 7 to July 11.
Jon Loevy and Uptown People’s Law, both of Chicago, represent the plaintiffs.
Attorney General Kwame Raoul represents the defendants.