When Giovanni Loyola got out of jail in Birmingham on February 28, his left wrist was in great pain. His fingertips had turned grey, according to his federal lawsuit. He went to Christ Health Center where doctors said he would need an operation.
“It was real painful,” said Loyola, who lives in Pinson, just outside Birmingham. “It’s horrible. I don’t wish that pain on nobody. It’s just really unexpected. I have no words for it.”
First, they removed a few fingertips.
Four operations later, doctors had removed his entire hand.
Now he’s suing a deputy with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, saying he lost his hand from overly tight handcuffs. He alleges he was handcuffed for hours with the circulation in his wrists obstructed. He argues he asked for help loosening the handcuffs and was ignored by the sheriff’s deputies.
The suit, filed in federal court in April, claims deputies used excessive force and that his civil rights were violated.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department declined to comment due to pending litigation.
The arrest
Late on the evening of February 16, 2020, Loyola, who is described in his complaint as a young Hispanic man, was sitting in his mother’s trailer in Pinson watching television when deputies knocked on the door, according to the complaint.
According to a report filed by the deputy six days later, Deputy Godber (no first name available) and two other deputies were dispatched to the trailer park on Pinson Valley Parkway after getting multiple calls reporting gunshots and a report of two men fighting outside and unloading or loading large weapons.
Loyola, 25 at the time, says he was not involved in any fighting and there was no fight, although his brothers may have argued outside of his mother’s trailer.
“Plaintiff was not fighting anyone, had no guns, nor did he hear or see guns that evening,” the complaint states.
He said he answered the door to the deputies and asked them what was wrong.
“Deputy Godber, without answering and without asking permission to enter the home, reached inside the doorway, grabbed Plaintiff by the wrist and jerked him outside the home and down the steps,” the complaint says.
Loyola, who is about 5′5 and weighs about 132 pounds, was then slammed into a car, thrown to the ground, and punched in the face. According to the complaint, Deputy Godber pinned him to the ground with his knee on Loyola’s back and placed handcuffs tightly on his wrists.
Loyola told the officers he had done nothing wrong, and Deputy Godber stated “(he) doesn’t know how to be fucking quiet,” the complaint alleges.
Deputy Godber’s report to the magistrate on Feb. 22 of last year, tells a different narrative, reporting that Loyola’s speech was slurred, and he was being violent.
“Giovanni Loyola was intoxicated and arguing with family members so loud inside his residence it could be heard from the public roadway,” it says.
Godber’s report says: “Dep. Godber tried to detain Loyola where he immediately became combative pushing Dep. Godber away.” Loyola then struggled with deputies on the ground and resisted being handcuffed.
“He sustained some scratches to his face, however refused medics,” it says. Godber added that Loyola continued to be belligerent once in handcuffs.
Loyola was arrested for disorderly conduct/disturbing the peace and resisting arrest.
Attempts to reach Deputy Godber were unsuccessful.
In Loyola’s account of the arrest, his repeated pleas for help with adjusting his handcuffs were ignored.
“Deputy Godber refused even to consider loosening the handcuffs. He kept the handcuffs on Plaintiff with the same degree of tightness until he had transported him to the Jefferson County Jail that night,” the lawsuit says.
Losing a hand
According to Loyola, he was denied medical treatment while in jail, where he served added time for outstanding warrants with Tarrant, Homewood, and Pelham police departments for past traffic violations and for failure to appear.
“As soon as I got to the jail, they all just left me in there. I guess things could have gone better if I had been treated better. I was just left in the holding cell,” Loyola told AL.com
Loyola told AL.com he went to the hospital as soon as he got out of jail. Once there, the doctors told him he would need an operation.
“(H)e was found to have a severe problem with blood flow to his left hand is in need of emergent surgery,” the complaint said.
Loyola went home from a surgery that removed the tops of three of his fingers on March 2nd but returned to the hospital within several weeks because of severe pain that kept him awake at night.
“When I first started noticing my fingers turning blue, turning black, it scared me so much. I’d be by myself at home. It really scared me, and I haven’t been the same since,” he said.
Loyola said he endured a ten-month ordeal that involved a total of four surgeries. “There were a few different hospitals,” he said, visibly struggling to find words.
“There (were) a few different sections of the hospital. Some people didn’t know what to do for me. They didn’t know how to help me,” said Loyola, who depended on his hands for manual labor.
Finally, after several unsuccessful surgeries where Loyola’s fingers were removed and a vein was transferred from his leg to his arm, a doctor told Loyola he would need to have his hand amputated, he and his mother said.
“I felt really bad, and I started breaking down and crying.”
Giovanni Loyola at the hospital with grey fingers
Handcuff injuries very rare
According to policing experts who spoke to AL.com, severe handcuffing injuries are uncommon because standard handcuffs have a double-locking mechanism that keeps them from continually tightening and causing injury.
“I think it’s extremely rare to see anything so serious as an amputation,” said Ken Wallentine, a use of force consultant who is the chief of the West Jordan Police Department in West Jordan, Utah.
He said double-locking handcuffs and doing a “pinky test,” leaving room the size of a pinky to measure for tightness, are basic safety procedures taught in 101 law enforcement training.
Amputations following arrests are not unheard of, however. In 2013 a woman sued after losing her arm in an arrest in Pittsburgh.
Wallentine said proper handcuffing should prevent injury, not cause it.
“Handcuffing often calms people down because they get the futility, they understand the futility of continuing to resist,” he said.
William Terrill, Associate Dean at Arizona State University and a professor of criminal justice said the amputation of a hand can be evidence that something went wrong in application of handcuffs.
He said best practice is for officers to adjust handcuffs if a suspect complains of tightness and the handcuffs appear to be too tight.
“The officer probably, depending on the department policy, had a duty to check on (the tightness of the cuffs) because the end result was obviously tragic,” he said.
Slow recovery
Several months after the amputation, Loyola struggles with basic tasks like tying his shoes or fastening his belt buckle. He said he feels depressed and ashamed that he can no longer be helpful to his family.
His mother, Maribel Perez, said that Loyola used to help out a lot around the house and now he hardly leaves his room.
“We see him just staying home at his room, depressed and sad,” she said. “He won’t even want to go to restaurants with us. He’s like, ‘Why? I don’t want to go, I’m embarrassed.’”
Loyola said he does not know what he can do with his life now, but one thing that still makes him hopeful about the future is his young son.
“I can’t seem to recover,” he said. “I still expect to be a lot more better and wiser in the decisions I make, to make up for all the sorrows that I’ve put everybody through and (the) embarrassment.”
Update: This story was updated on Thursday at 8:23 a.m. to reflect that a Pittsburgh woman had her arm amputated in 2013