And in May, a jail official reported that an officer was seen dragging a handcuffed inmate on the floor while another officer kicked at his head.

In 1999, he and three colleagues stood accused of beating a handcuffed inmate.

The lawsuit has also produced surveillance videotapes: on one, guards drag an inmate screaming along a hall; on another, guards tumble a handcuffed inmate down a steel staircase.

After the disturbance, the State Correction Commission harshly criticized New York City correction officers for having beaten handcuffed inmates during the riot.

Early every Friday morning, 200 to 300 handcuffed inmates are taken by bus from the Cook County Jail to a prison in Joliet, about an hour's drive south of Chicago.

This time, the officers went on a rampage, kicking and hitting handcuffed inmates, spitting on them and showering them with racial slurs.

Though Specialist Graner was not involved in that scandal, he was accused in 1999 of beating a handcuffed inmate.

Within a year, the state had investigated accusations that guards at the prison routinely beat handcuffed inmates, used crude racial slurs and falsified reports of inmate misconduct.

She said the blood pattern described by Mr. McWhorter occurred when a corrections sergeant grabbed a handcuffed inmate by his hair and drove his face into the wall.

He told of one night when a "bunch of people from MI" watched as a group of handcuffed and shackled inmates were subjected to abuse by Graner and Frederick.