Ending a hunger strike: Grapski in hospital after second arrest
By Ronald Dupont Jr.
Herald Editor

Photo By Ronald Dupont Jr. Alachua resident Charlie Grapski peers through the metal grate of an interview room at the Alachua County jail Thursday, Aug. 16. Grapski said on that day he hadnÕt eaten in days and would not eat because that decision was the only choice left he could make for himself.

ALACHUA – Alachua resident Charlie Grapski had made the decision to stop eating last Monday, Aug. 13, the day he was taken to jail.

A week and a day later, he was paying the price for that decision. This past Tuesday, he was taken to a hospital and had faint vital signs. His attorney was unable to wake Grapski Tuesday night.

But by Wednesday morning, on the news that he could be released from jail as early as next Tuesday, Grapski agreed to start eating, ending his hunger strike.

Grapski, a political activist who is involved in multiple lawsuits against the city of Alachua, had been arrested Aug. 13 on charges of trespass and injuring three police officers at the Alachua Police Department while resisting arrest.

A day later, he was charged with injuring a jail detention officer as Grapski tried to allegedly resist a strip-search.

In a jailhouse interview last Thursday, Grapski said he was arrested by Alachua police when he refused to leave after demanding to file a sworn complaint. He said he was grabbed by Alachua Police Chief Robert Jernigan and another officer and then swung around, with his head hitting the door.

He said he was knocked dizzy and doesn't remember a whole segment of the incident. He was taken to a hospital, then taken to jail.

Grapski said at the jail, he was listening to his first court appearance the next day via a 2-way television set-up when detention officers pulled him away before his hearing was over.

He said he resisted and said he wanted to finish listening to his court appearance, as was his right, he said.

Detention officers, instead, threw him to the ground, handcuffed him, then pepper-sprayed him in the face, Grapski said. He said a short time later, he passed out, hit his head on a metal bench, then landed face first on the floor but was not taken to the jail infirmary or a hospital.

Photo By Ronald Dupont Jr. Grapski was handcuffed by his hands and feet during his interview last Thursday. Grapski has been charged with hurting four officers in two incidents.

Instead, he was strapped down to a chair, with a nurse telling him the possible effects of pepper spray, he said.

Last Thursday, as he sat handcuffed by hand and foot in jail with a cut on his face and bruises on his body, Grapski said the only decision he could make on his own was not to eat.

“I’m not trying to hurt myself,” he said. “I’m exercising my only freedom.”

(To see a video montage of photos taken of Grapski at the jail Thursday, Aug. 16, CLICK HERE. To download a ZIP file of semi hi-res photos of Grapski at the jail, CLICK HERE.)

Grapski was scheduled to speak with The High Springs Herald this past Tuesday at the jail but by Tuesday morning, jail officials had made the decision to take him to the hospital.

Grapski was dehydrated and had faint vital signs, according to Alachua County Sheriff Sgt. Keith Faulk, spokesperson.

"We are concerned with his well-being," Faulk said Tuesday. "His vitals are weak. Hopefully, he'll start eating on his own."

Faulk said that if Grapski continued to not eat, Grapski could be force-fed by being strapped down and having a feeding tube placed into his arm.

"A judge would have to order that," Faulk said.

Faulk said that if a judge were to order such a force feeding, that sort of procedure could be done at the jail in the facility's infirmary. Grapski also could be Baker-acted and taken to another facility, Faulk said.

Photo By Ronald Dupont Jr. In a jailhouse interview last Thursday, Aug. 16, Charlie Grapski shows the bruises on his body from his scuffles with officers. Grapski complained he was in pain and had a severe headache but wasnÕt being treated. The next day, after these photos and others were placed on The High Springs HeraldÕs Website, Grapski was taken to the jailÕs infirmary.

The Jailhouse Interview

Having not eaten since Sunday night, Alachua political activist Charlie Grapski sat in a jail cell interview room last Thursday, Aug. 16 and made allegations of mistreatment by police and of inadequate medical treatment or no treatment at all inside the county jail.

With multiple black bruises on his arms, a 2-inch cut on his face and sleepy, red eyes, Grapski sat in a locked room at the Alachua County jail and spoke with High Springs Herald Editor Ronald Dupont Jr., who sat on the other side of a steel grate.

At least four times during the interview, Grapski stopped talking, stared partway at the ceiling and lost track of time until Dupont called his name.

By the end of the 2-hour interview, Grapski was in tears when he heard his friends were worried about him.

How It All Started

Grapski said he got upset when he heard that Alachua Police Chief Robert Jernigan went to the Kangaroo gas station in Alachua to look at a check Grapski used to pay for gas four days prior.

(For the full story on this incident, see last week's Herald or use The Herald's online archives at www.HighSpringsHerald.com.)

Grapski said that he felt Jernigan was breaking the law and invading Grapski’s privacy when he did more than just ask Grapski’s bank if the check was a good one. Grapski said Jernigan needed a search warrant to start asking questions about whether Grapski’s check would have been good on other days.

Grapski went to the city police department Monday around noon to speak to Jernigan. Jernigan said he had put all the necessary information in the report and that he wasn’t going to speak to Grapski. Then Jernigan went into the interior of the police department.

Grapski said he then asked a police officer for the second-in-command of the department so that Grapski could file a sworn complaint against Jernigan. Grapski said that Jernigan then walked back out into the lobby and said that if Grapski wanted to file a complaint, he should do so with Alachua City Manager Clovis Watson Jr.

At that point, Grapski said, Jernigan asked Grapski to go outside. Once out there, the conversation continued.

“When I asked him about him inquiring about my checking account at the bank, he said, ‘Well, the bank didn’t have to give me that information.’”

At that point, Grapski said, Jernigan received a phone call, then walked inside the lobby of the police department and locked the outer doors. Grapski said he went up to the doors and knocked on them, saying, “I want to file a sworn complaint.”

The doors opened and out came Jernigan and another police officer. Jernigan told Grapski to leave, but Grapski said he kept asking for somebody to take his sworn complaint. Jernigan said he told Grapski that if he wanted to file a sworn complaint, he could do so with the State Attorney's Office.

Jernigan said he told Grapski to leave or else be arrested for trespass.

During this, according to Grapski, the other officer moved closer to Grapski and kept saying, “Is he under arrest yet?”

Grapski, who had been recording the entire incident with his digital audio recorder, said he felt that something bad was about to happen and reached out to hand his recorder to a man nearby whom Grapski knew.

“The officer slammed my hand down and knocked the recorder to the ground,” Grapski said.

He said that at one point, the officer almost stepped on the recorder as Grapski tried to kick the recorder to his friend. Grapski said he then remembers being grabbed and restrained, then swung around, with his head hitting the police department’s outer doors.

“At that point, I got dizzy,” he said. “I don’t remember what happened for a while after that. I don’t remember being taken through the lobby. The first thing I can remember after that is being in the department’s inside hallway.”

He said that he remembers putting his foot in a door so they couldn’t close it.

“I said, ‘I don’t trust you,’” Grapski said.

But according to Alachua police reports, Grapski actively resisted arrest by kicking Jernigan in the leg, head-butting another officer, then kicking another officer in the hand.

Once inside the police department’s holding cell, Grapski began feeling pain in the right-hand side of his body and eventually began to go numb there, he said.

He asked for paramedics and was taken to the hospital. There, he said, doctors said that he was suffering from strained muscles and tendons. Then he was taken to the Alachua County jail.

“I said, ‘God, here I am again.”

Inside The Jail

Once at the jail, Grapski said he asked to be taken to the infirmary so he could be given something for his body pain and for his throbbing headache. A nurse saw him, gave him some acetaminophen, then promised to bring him some ice packs.

No ice packs were ever brought, Grapski said. After a few hours of increasing pain, he asked to be taken back to the infirmary. Once there, he said, the nurse looked upset he was back for a second time and said, “What do you want me to do for you?”

Grapski said she went to get ice for him, then said, “Don’t come back here again.”

While he was in the infirmary, Grapski said, he had a surreal moment when a Sheriff’s sergeant came in and began asking Grapski about Clovis Watson Jr. and the dual-office lawsuit that Grapski had filed.

Once back in the holding area, Grapski said, two officers came by hours later to speak to him.

“We’re concerned you have enemies in Alachua,” he said they said. “We wanted to check on you.”

The next morning, on Tuesday, Grapski was taken to an area where he appeared on a 2-way television before a judge.

“I went into first appearance in a lot of pain,” he said.

Grapski said he tried to make his points as best as he could on a night of no sleep and lots of pain. Grapski said that once the judge set the bond at $10,000, deputies began pulling him away from the television camera.

“I said, ‘The judge is still talking about my case!’” Grapski said.

He said the officers were pulling at him as he could hear the judge and the Assistant State Attorney continuing to talk about the case.

He said he tried to get back in front of the camera to say more to the judge.

“That’s when they brought me into the shower room and tackled me,” Grapski said.

Grapski said that after several deputies got on him and held him down, he was handcuffed and then turned over onto his back.

He said a deputy then walked up to him and squirted pepper-spray into his eyes as Grapski laid on his back in handcuffs.

But jail detention officers tell a different story. They said as Grapski was leaving after his first appearance, he began telling officers that he would not be strip-searched.

“Inmate Charles Grapski turned to me and stated, 'I will not be strip-searched. You will call Sadie Darnell right now, ” Detention Officer Brenda Spencer wrote in a report. “He kept repeating this statement while being escorted to the strip-search cell. When we got just inside of cell #109, inmate Grapski got real close to my face and stated, 'You get Sadie Darnell on the phone right now' as he turned to pull away from Detention Officer T. Watson and myself in an aggressive manner by twisting his body and slinging his elbows.”

Spencer said because he was resisting so aggressively, he struck her with his upper body, causing her right elbow to hit the wall.

Spencer said Grapski refused all commands to calm down and even refused to sit down after being told he would be pepper-sprayed if he didn't. He positioned himself in an “aggressive manner” and was then taken down by two officers, according to the jail report.

While being held on the floor, he still resisted, at which point an officer applied a half-second burst of pepper spray in Grapski's face, according to the jail report.

Grapski was then handcuffed but still resisted and refused to stand up, according to the report. That's when four officers then carried him to another cell, had a nurse check him for injuries, then had him strip-searched.

But Grapski said he was tackled for trying to get back in front of the 2-way television to hear the rest of his court case. Then he was handcuffed and pepper-sprayed, he said.

“I went into convulsions. I was having spasms that were starting in my rib cage and going to my back. Between breaths, I kept saying, ‘I can’t breathe.’ They kept telling me to be quiet.”

He said the deputies thought he was simply reacting to the pepper spray. Grapski said he felt his heart racing so fast that his chest was in pain. He said he couldn’t stand and was having convulsions.

That’s when some deputies lifted him up under his arms while another deputy yanked down on his feet, yelling “stand up,” according to Grapski. He added that the greatest pain he's ever felt came when the officers were pulling down on his legs while he was convulsing.

He was put under a shower so that deputies could try to get the pepper spray out of his eyes, Grapski said. His clothes were completely soaked, and he was told to put on new clothes.

He was brought into a small room, he said, and left there. He said he kept yelling, “I need a doctor, I need a doctor.”

“I was getting to the point where I was scared of having a heart attack. They just kept looking in and laughing at me.”

He said a nurse eventually showed up and told him to be quiet and to stop breathing so hard.

“I told her it was involuntary and that I was in severe pain,” he said.

Grapski said sometime after this point, he tried to stand up and then blacked out. Later, he said he learned from one of the deputies that he had fallen and hit the top of his head on a metal bench, then landed face first on the floor.

Detention Officer Lee Jackson said he went into the cell and saw Grapski “laying on the floor.” Jackson said Officer H. Berry said Grapski “stood up and all of a sudden fell forward, hitting his head on the bench.”

The report states that Grapski was then put into a restraint chair and that Nurse Alex Whitfield “checked all straps for tightness.”

Then 15-minute checks were resumed, according to the report.

Grapski said he remembers waking up just prior to deputies putting him in a chair and putting restraints on his ankles and wrists. Grapski said the spasms continued and were made worse by the fact that his body couldn’t move. Deputies kept telling him to hold his head up and then would push on his forehead to keep his head up, he said.

“They were treating me like I was faking,” he said. “They kept saying, ‘You’re trying to hurt yourself.’”

He said that nobody took his blood pressure, checked his heart rate or checked his eyes. He said the only thing the nurse did was check the straps for tightness.

Jail reports state that Grapski kept “rocking back and forth” while seated in the restraint chair.

Grapski said that after being put in the restraint chair, he learned that a detention officer from the shower incident was pressing charges against him and that he was going to have to appear before a judge yet again the next morning.

He said the detention officer, Brenda Spencer, came into the room and told him that she was pressing charges.

Later, he was taken to the infirmary and was told that because he had blacked out, he would be kept in the infirmary overnight, he said.

He said he was then informed that he was a suicide risk and was changed into a one-piece article of clothing made out of thick material. He was told to lie on the floor with no pillow and no blanket, he said.

He said one of the deputies came up to him and said that because he was on suicide watch, somebody would be checking on him every 15 minutes.

Grapski said nobody checked on him and that his spasms returned as he lay on the floor.

He said he stood up and watched as two people were holding cups together, shaking them, and making some sort of fruit drink.

He said he asked for medical help but received none.

His eyes were still burning from the pepper spray, stuff was coming out of his nose, and somewhere along the way, his glasses went missing. He couldn’t see well because of the pepper spray and worse, wouldn’t be able to see clearly past two feet once the effect wore off because his glasses were gone, he said.

The next morning, he was brought before a judge, who increased the bail to $60,000. He said that once the bond was set and before the judge was done talking, the deputies started taking him out of the room again.

“Why did he set it so high?” Grapski said of his bond. “They only set bail that high when they’re afraid somebody is going to flee. But I’m not going to flee. I want my day in court.”

He said as deputies wheeled him away from the camera in a wheelchair, his heart started racing again.

“I was hyperventilating, and a nurse came over and put a bag over my mouth to try to help me,” he said.

He said a nurse kept looking at the back of his hand and was pushing down on his blood vessels, then remarking that the blood was not returning once the flow was stopped.

“This doesn’t look good,” she said, according to Grapski.

But he got no medical attention beyond that, he said.

Later – he can’t quite remember when – a woman came to give him a psychological evaluation. He said she asked him a set of questions for 10 minutes, then said, “There is no grounds for a suicide watch.”

He was allowed to change out of the “suicide suit,” as he called it. But he was put into a red jumpsuit – meaning that he was an aggressive inmate.

In his jailhouse interview last Thursday, Grapski said he hoped to be put into a regular jumpsuit.

Grapski said he drinks as often as he can but will not eat. When interviewed last Thursday, he said the last time he had eaten was Sunday night. He said when he woke up Monday before going to the Alachua Police Department, he decided to skip breakfast and was going to eat later.

But “later” was inside a city holding cell.

He said last Thursday that he continues to ask for somebody to take his sworn complaint and is told that somebody will take it but nobody ever comes.

Thursday afternoon, Grapski said he was still in severe back pain and was not sleeping for more than 15 minutes at a time. He lifted his jumpsuit to reveal dark bruises on his biceps and a bruise on his right wrist.

He also had a rash around his neck and a cut beneath his left eye. Grapski had a “sleepy” look about him and occasionally would stop in mid-sentence and look partway up and stay fixed on some distant position until his name was called.

Grapski said he has “immense respect” for Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell but added that she has no idea how bad the medical care in the jail is.

But Grapski said that if he had to put the blame on anyone, he would put it on State Attorney Bill Cervone. Grapski said Cervone has ignored repeated requests by Grapski and others for a full investigation into the city of Alachua, Watson, and the police department.

“I blame Bill Cervone for letting this escalate to this point,” Grapski said.

Near the end of his 2-hour interview last Thursday, Grapski asked what was happening in the world and was surprised to hear that two tropical storms had formed. He also did not know that somebody had taken old newspaper photos of him and set them to the song, “I fought the law and the law won,” and then placed that montage on the YouTube Website Wednesday.

Grapski, who had trouble keeping his head up during the interview, just shook it when he heard the news.

Grapski stayed composed for most of the interview until he heard that his friends were worried about him and were going to put money into his jail account so he could buy simple items.

Grapski started crying.

“I don’t want them to worry about me. I don’t want them to worry about me.”

The next day, Friday, he was taken back to the infirmary for yet unspecified reasons, and this past Tuesday, he was taken to a hospital.

Grapski's attorney, Joe Little, visited Grapski Tuesday night but could not wake Grapski and was told that Grapski had been that way most of the day.

Little re-visited Grapski Wednesday morning and was able to speak to him.

“He's in a state of discomfort – no question about it,” Little said.

He said that after speaking with Grapski and talking about the possibility of him being released from jail as early as Tuesday after a bond reduction hearing, Grapski agreed to eat.

When Little left the hospital, there was a plate of food in front of Grapski.