A federal magistrate judge on Monday pressed a Washington jail official to explain why Cole Tomas Allen was placed on restrictive suicide watch after his arrest, challenging the need for conditions his lawyers said were extreme. US Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said the jail’s treatment of Allen did not fit the way it houses other detainees accused of violent crimes.
Allen’s attorneys said he had been confined in a padded room with constant lighting, repeatedly strip searched and placed in restraints outside his cell. Faruqui said the D.C. jail routinely houses convicted killers and other people charged with violent crimes without putting them on 24-hour lockdown, and he said, “It could drive a person crazy to be in that situation,” while asking why Allen had been treated differently. Jail lawyer Tony Towns replied, “Every case is different, your honor.”
The judge’s push came after city jail officials in Washington, D.C., removed Allen from designated suicide status over the weekend and moved him into protective custody. Allen’s lawyers said he had shown no suicidal risk factors after his arrest, though a jail psychiatrist initially concluded that he did pose a suicide risk. Defense attorney Eugene Ohm also said Allen was prohibited from having anything in his cell and had asked for a Bible and a visit from a chaplain without receiving either.
The dispute lands in a case already under intense scrutiny. Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, is charged with attempted assassination of the president and two additional firearms counts after the April 25 attack at the Washington Hilton, where he was injured but not shot. Authorities say he ran through a security checkpoint armed with guns and knives and pointed a weapon at a Secret Service agent, who fired back five times. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has said Allen fired a shot that struck the agent’s bullet-resistant vest, and Allen later told FBI agents that he did not expect to survive the attack.
The hearing showed how quickly suicide precautions can become a second fight inside the larger criminal case. Allen faces up to life in prison if convicted of the assassination count alone, and Faruqui’s questioning signaled that the jail will have to justify why a defendant in that posture was kept under conditions far harsher than those used for many other violent detainees.
