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San Francisco guards allegedly forced inmates to fight like gladiators

By Danielle Haynes

SAN FRANCISCO, March 27 (UPI) -- Prosecutors in San Francisco are investigating allegations sheriff's deputies forced inmates to fight like gladiators and made bets on the outcomes of the matches.

The San Francisco public defender's office took up the case along with a private investigator after the father of one of the inmates told authorities his son was forced to fight other inmates for deputies' entertainment and profit.

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"I can only describe this as an outrageously sadistic scenario that sounds like it's out of the 'Game of Thrones,'" public defender Jeff Adachi said Friday in a news conference.

Richardo Palikiko Garcia, who weighs 150 pounds, said he was made to fight a 350-pound inmate, Stanley Harris.

"Deputies betting against me and forcing me to fight and if I don't fight, then he's basically telling me that he was going to beat me up, cuff me, Tase me all at once," Garcia said. "Chanting like, 'Get him. Get him. Hit him. [Expletive] him up or kick him in the [expletive]. Stuff like that."

Garcia said he felt he was being bullied because of his race -- Hawaiian and Filipino.

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Harris said he was also pressured into the fights and forced to do pushups to prepare for them.

"Common sense indicates that such conduct does not occur without the knowledge of numerous people," the San Francisco's district attorney's office said in a statement. "These allegations require an independent and thorough investigation into the practices and supervision at the San Francisco Sheriff's Department."

Four deputies named in the allegations were reassigned to other duties in which they don't interact with inmates, pending an investigation, San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi said.

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