http://www.policelink.com/news/artic...nlet_20090305u

March 04, 2009

SEATTLE, WA – The videotape of a King County sheriff’s deputy roughing up a 15-year-old girl in a holding cell has caught the attention of the Department of Justice, which “is definitely looking into the matter,” according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Harris, who heads the local office’s civil-rights division.

Harris said the U.S. Attorney’s Office had learned of the incident last month when the Sheriff’s Office announces criminal charges had been filed against the deputy. He said the office “just didn’t have enough to go on” at that point, but the release Friday of the video from a holding cell changed that.

“It is on our radar now,” Harris said. “That was the first time we’d seen in on Friday, and we’ve had a couple of days to talk about it. We are looking, yes.”

Deputy Paul Schene, 31, of Auburn, an eight-year department veteran, has been charged with misdemeanor assault in connection with the Nov. 29 incident. He’s accused of kicking Malika Calhoun in the abdomen, punching her in the head and pulling her hair in a sheriff’s holding cell after her arrest for car theft.

If the U.S. Attorney’s Office determines that he violated the girl’s civil rights, Schene could also face federal felony charges. Civil rights criminal charges, however, are rare. The only case ever filed in Western Washington involved another King County sheriff’s deputy, Brian Bonnar, and another case in which a deputy is supposed to have assaulted a person in custody.

A jury acquitted Bonnar following a trial last December, despite the testimony of several eyewitness deputies.