After weeks of delay, civil rights attorneys representing people locked up in the New Orleans jail are now satisfied that the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office has turned over all the records they have related to several questionable uses of force at the facility earlier this year.

But they say many investigative records they requested that should have been in the possession of the office “simply do not exist.”

Those records include field interviews taken during use of force investigations, internal investigations into OPSO policy violations, and supervisory reviews of force investigations — all of which the attorneys say the Sheriff Susan Hutson’s Office is required to keep under the terms of the long-running federal consent decree.

“It is now clear…that OPSO not only failed to comply with the law of this case regarding the Plaintiff Class’ rights of access, but also has failed to comply with the Consent Judgment’s substantive requirements regarding uses of force, reporting, and investigations, as evidenced (in part) by the plethora of records that should exist but do not,” attorneys with the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center wrote in a filing on Thursday. 

The records that were being sought by MacArthur relate to five separate incidents in which deputies used force on detainees at the jail in late January and early February of this year, which the attorneys say may have violated OPSO policy, and possibly the law. Several of the incidents occurred on a tier reserved for detainees with mental health needs. 

In one, deputies pepper sprayed a detainee on the mental health tier who allegedly refused to leave his cell to be processed out of the jail. There is no indication from the incident report that he posed any physical threat, or that mental health staff were contacted prior to the use of pepper spray.

In another, deputies pepper sprayed and used force on a detainee who appeared to be in the midst of a mental health crisis because he had a broomstick in his cell. Again, there was no indication that mental health staff was consulted prior to the use of force.

The sheriff’s office has confirmed that deputies involved in the use of force are under investigation, but have declined to provide further details. 

The detainee, T.A. however, was alleged to have struck the deputies during the incident, and was arrested several weeks later. He remains in custody because of it. 

While Hutson’s office turned over initial use of force reports, the attorneys say they struggled for weeks to get any documentation related to ongoing or completed investigations into the incidents — which they are entitled to under the consent decree. 

Last month, they filed a motion in federal court asking the judge overseeing the consent decree to intervene and force Hutson to turn over the records, or confirm that they do not exist.

The sheriff’s office responded on Wednesday, notifying the court that as of that day they had turned over everything they had related to the investigations. 

“Sheriff Hutson acknowledges that the subject requests Plaintiffs’ counsel were not responded to in a timely manner,” they wrote. “With that being said, at the time of filing this response, Sheriff Hutson has provided complete responses to all inquiries by Plaintiffs.”

Since the time the attorneys requested the information in mid-March, Hutson has been under fire for questionable spending on hotel rooms for OPSO staff during Mardi Gras, and let go of four key members of her executive staff — including assistant sheriff Kristin Morales and chief legal counsel Graham Bosworth.