Mahoning County sheriff just doesn't seem to get it

Mahoning County Sheriff Randall Wellington says he's "very disappointed" with the arrest of three current and three former corrections officers charged with participating in the beating of an inmate. Disappointed?
Consider what the federal government alleges took place in the county jail Dec. 28, 2001:
"After the second beating was over, other deputies dragged the inmate, stripped naked, through the disciplinary unit to his cell."
A naked inmate being brutalized. Now there's a scene to warm the hearts of guards at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq. If the reference to Abu Ghraib has Wellington puzzled, he may want to get the latest edition of Newsweek magazine. A photograph of naked Iraqi prisoners will give him pictorial context to what went on in the Mahoning County Justice Center -- the county jail.
Then, perhaps, Wellington's disappointment will be replaced by righteous anger. And perhaps he will start seeing what happened to inmate Tawhon Easterly as more than a "huge civil rights case."
That six corrections officers had no qualms about participating in the beating of an inmate -- not once, but twice, according to the government -- and then dragging the individual naked to his cell bespeaks a law enforcement agency out of control.
Sheriff's responsibility
While the federal criminal justice system will deal with the criminal charges against the current and former deputies -- they have pleaded innocent -- it is the sheriff's responsibility to find out why the accused were not dissuaded from indulging in such thuggish behavior. Did they get permission from some senior manager and supervisors to punish Easterly for striking Deputy Christina Kachaylo?
That question must be answered, given the allegations of the use of force in the jail from Deputy Ronald J. Kaschak, who pleaded guilty in federal court in Cleveland to depriving an inmate of his constitutional rights by aiding and abetting others in using excessive force.
Kaschak, who was involved in the second beating, resigned about a month ago and is cooperating with federal prosecutors. His sentencing has been delayed.
The FBI and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation have led the probe, and assistant U.S. attorneys Steven M. Dettelbach and Kristy Parker are prosecuting the case.
The six who have been charged are deputies Raymond Hull III, John Rivera and Ryan C. Strange and Mark Dixon, who was removed from the sheriff's department payroll in March 2003 and whose status is frozen pending the outcome of an unrelated criminal charge; Ronald Denson, who retired as a deputy last September; and William E. DeLuca, who retired as a sergeant in July 2002.
Kaschak alleges that he was given direction from "senior management" and "his supervisors" to put Easterly in the hospital as further punishment.
Sheriff Wellington is ultimately responsible for everything that goes on in his department and must answer these questions: When did you first hear of the beating of Easterly? Was there anyone else in upper management who had knowledge of it?