FAMILY OF MAN WHO DIED AT BOSSIER PENAL FARM SUES

A Bossier City family is suing Bossier Sheriff Larry Deen and some of his
subordinates over the death of a man Oct. 28 while he was being held in the
Bossier Parish Penal Farm.

Barry Elliott, 46, was arrested on a charge of attempting to obtain a
controlled dangerous substance by fraud Oct. 8. He was placed at the penal
farm, a minimum-security facility for nonviolent offenders, on Oct. 16.

At the time of his arrest, he was taking methadone prescribed by a
Shreveport drug treatment center, according to the lawsuit filed by his
wife, their eldest child and Elliott's mother and father.

Elliott was prescribed methadone to ween him off prescription painkillers
to which he became addicted after two back surgeries, family members say in
the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Shreveport. The petition
alleges that sheriff's employees gave Elliott less than his full dose of
methadone and withheld methadone, causing him to undergo withdrawal and
deteriorate physically and mentally.

Elliott's family members also charge that he suffered broken ribs, a broken
sternum and a burst eardrum at the hands of penal farm guards.

Bossier sheriff's spokesman Ed Baswell declined to comment on the lawsuit.