Judge Zia Faruqui Questions 31-Day Jail Hold on Allen
judge zia faruqui pressed a Washington, D.C., jail official on Monday to explain why Cole Tomas Allen was placed on restrictive suicide watch after his arrest. The city jail removed Allen from designated suicide status over the weekend, and he was moved into protective custody.
Allen’s attorneys told the court he had been held in a padded room with constant lighting, repeatedly strip searched, and placed in restraints outside his cell. Defense attorney Eugene Ohm said Allen was also prohibited from having anything in his cell.
Monday Hearing
Faruqui questioned the jail’s handling of a defendant charged in the April 25 attack at the Washington Hilton. Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, is charged with attempted assassination of the president and two additional firearms counts, and he faces up to life in prison if convicted of the assassination count alone.
During the hearing, Faruqui said the jail routinely houses convicted killers and other violent defendants without placing them on 24-hour lockdown. He told the court, “It could drive a person crazy to be in that situation,” as he pressed Tony Towns, the acting general counsel for the city’s corrections department.
Allen At The Washington Hilton
The case centers on what happened after the April 25 attack. Authorities said Allen was armed with guns and knives when he ran through a security checkpoint and pointed his weapon at a Secret Service agent. A Secret Service agent fired back five times, and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has said that Allen fired a shot that struck the agent’s bullet-resistant vest.
Allen was injured but was not shot during the attack, and he later told FBI agents that he did not expect to survive. The jail’s decision to lift suicide prevention measures and move him to protective custody came after his attorneys complained about the confinement conditions.
Towns In Court
Towns responded to Faruqui by saying, “Every case is different, your honor.” Jocelyn Ballantine, a Justice Department prosecutor, and Eugene Ohm both appeared in the hearing, with Ohm saying he had asked for a Bible and a visit from a chaplain for Allen but had not received either.
The immediate issue before the court is how the jail justified those restrictions and whether Allen should have been held under the same kind of lockdown used for other violent detainees. Faruqui’s questioning put the jail’s own comparison point on the record, and the hearing left the focus on why Allen’s treatment differed.
