ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. October 27 2019 – A jail guard, identified in a lawsuit as T.G., said he was working at the Rio Arriba County Jail in Tierra Amarilla June 3 when a county deputy used a Taser on his genitals.

Just like thousands of times before, a law enforcement officer needed to enter the jail’s sally port, but when Rio Arriba County Deputy Leon Gallegos needed to enter, the suit claimed he was honking his horn.

The jail guard told him to stop honking his horn. Shortly after, Deputy Gallegos pulled out his Taser X2 and shot T.G. in the groin.

The incident was caught on a jail security camera. The jail guard immediately hunched over and fell to his knees. Minutes later, T.G. is still in visible pain.

When Deputy Gallegos deployed the Taser, the barbs penetrated through the jail guard’s pants and sent 50,000 volts of electricity into his genitals.

The suit alleges that T.G. now has permanent injuries that have caused “a loss of intimacy and loss of enjoyment of life.”

Rio Arriba County Sheriff James Lujan is also being sued in the case. He admits his deputy was in the wrong.

“It was a mistake and it was a bad mistake,” Sheriff Lujan said.

The lawsuit references a previous interview KOB 4 conducted with Sheriff Lujan where he said the department issued out new Taser X2’s before deputies were trained on them.

Sheriff Lujan told KOB 4 that Deputy Gallegos was disciplined and was off the force for a short time, but now he’s working again on full patrol. The Sheriff added that the incident was a wake up call for him. Since it happened—he has ensured that every deputy is now up to date on all trainings.

“I put out the order that I want everyone to be up to date with their classroom academy standards by Oct. 1, and they were all up to date by Oct. 1.” Sheriff Lujan said.

With the damage already done, the county may now have to shell out tax dollars to pay for the deputy’s mistake.

KOB4

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