Three Los Angeles Sheriff Department (LASD) deputies assigned to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown are suspended (or, paid leave, that is) as a criminal investigation is opened into accusations from an inmate saying that he was isolated by them, punched and pepper-sprayed in the anus and scrotum area. It all started when inmate Alejandro Franco, 23, who is there for "allegedly violating terms of his probation for a domestic violence conviction," swore at a deputy when he requested a clean shirt and was refused.

About 45 minutes after the argument, three deputies removed him from his cell, handcuffed him and took him to a recreation area away from other inmates, Franco said.

One deputy jabbed him in the face, the inmate alleged. Another yanked his T-shirt and asked, "How's this shirt?" Franco said.

Then the deputies ordered him to lie face-down on the pavement. Two held him there, pressing their knees into his back and neck. Then, he said, "my boxer shorts were pulled down and I was pepper-sprayed . . . . " [LA Times]

"My testicles and area down there was burning really bad," Franco told The Times in a phone interview. "If they had just punched me and yanked my shirt, this wouldn't have been an issue. They took it an extra step. It was humiliating, degrading, embarrassing. . . . They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

And to that, the LASD is taking it "very seriously."

Photo by o2ma via Flickr