cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1490535

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The attack begins after less than a minute. Two dozen men are milling about a rec room in Men’s Central Jail when one of them takes a swing.

Others pile on, and soon half a dozen people are punching, kicking and stabbing. There are no jailers in sight — and no sign they even notice. Suddenly, after roughly a minute, the violence stops. The attackers seem to have grown bored, or maybe tired.

For the next 10 minutes, the victim paces and tries to clean up his own blood. A few onlookers go back to working out in the corner — until suddenly the beating resumes.

Finally, roughly 14 minutes after the attack began, deputies show up and order everyone to the ground.

The brutal 20-minute clip is one of a few dozen graphic videos from the past six years saved to a thumb drive picked out of the trash by one inmate, and later secreted out of the jail by another. Together they paint a picture of a jail system awash in far more violence and disarray than previously revealed to the public.

Several of the clips recently reviewed by The Times show stabbings and fist fights. One shows an inmate trying to kill himself, and another shows several jailers punching a man in the head as they try to subdue him. Still another shows a woman giving birth in the middle of a hallway, where her newborn falls out onto the jail floor in a puddle of blood.

Some of the videos, all apparently taken from the jails’ surveillance systems, show men so inured to violence that they continue on with their daily routine, working out and reading even as bloody brawls and beatings by deputies unfold feet away. Other clips highlight a troubling inattentiveness from jailers, who are slow to respond or leave vulnerable inmates unattended.

After learning of the thumb drive and reviewing two of the videos, Michele Deitch — a senior lecturer in criminal justice at University of Texas at Austin — said she was “utterly stunned” by the brutality and lack of oversight, particularly after watching the 20-minute clip.

“There was absolutely no supervision,” she said. “That that could be happening with cameras on and no one comes is mind-boggling.”