A Milwaukee County sheriff's deputy accused in a lawsuit of severely heating a County Jail inmate testified Wednesday that he used no force against the inmate "other than just holding onto his arms to restrain him."
Gregory J. Kupczyk said the in-mate, Eugene E. Glover Jr., punched him in the upper chest and neck and tried to bite him as Kupczyk and two other deputies, also named as defendants in the suit, removed Glover from his cell Dec. 9, 1978.
Glover, who is black, filed a $900,000 lawsuit in Federal Court in 1980 alleging that he was beaten by the three deputies in a racially motivated incident. Former Sheriff Michael S. Wolke is named as a co-defendant.
Kupczyk testified that be asked for assistance to transfer Glover to a cell for inmates with "violent tendencies" after he repeatedly told Glover to stop speaking to female inmates through the jail's ventilator system.
Kupczyk said that after Glover loaded his personal items into a cardboard box to move into the other cell, he shoute obscenities at Kupczyk and "threw the box at me to distract me."
Kupczyk said Glover then punched him in the chest and neck and Kupczyk, using a "natural reaction to protect myself." pushed Glover against the back wall of the cell.
The deputy said he suffered a sprained wrist during the scuffle.
Kupczyk testified that Glover tried to break loose and yelled to other inmates that he was being beaten as Kupczyk and Deputies Robert Hillman and Michael J. Krzoska took him to the other cell.
Countering previous testimony that some deputies understood the term "elevator ride" to mean physical abuse of inmates, Kupczyk testified that "nothing unusual" happened when Glover was escorted by the three deputies on two elevators.