CRUEL AND UNUSUAL

Ex-Deputy Poured Boiling Water on Mentally Ill Prisoner’s Hands, Prosecutor Says

The former Orange County deputy is accused of dousing the prisoner with boiling water after they refused to comply with his commands.

An ex-sheriff’s deputy has been accused of pouring scalding water onto the hands of a mentally ill inmate after the prisoner refused to let go of a door hatch, leaving them with first- and second-degree burns. Guadalupe Ortiz, a 47-year-old former Orange County sheriff’s deputy, is accused of carrying out the sickening punishment at a jail in Santa Ana on April 1. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office alleges that the inmate twice refused to comply with Ortiz’s orders to let go of a hatch on a door, so the deputy fetched a cup of boiling water and poured it on the prisoner’s hands. It took six hours for the prisoner to get medical treatment for his peeling skin, according to the DA’s office. Ortiz has been charged with assault or battery by a public officer and battery with serious bodily injury, and, according to NBC News, he was dismissed from his job last Friday. In a statement, District Attorney Todd Spitzer accused Ortiz of “inflicting unnecessary harm on a mentally ill inmate out of frustration.”