SC deputy slammed door on detainee which cut off his finger, lawsuit says
A man awaiting trial in the Lexington County Detention Center lost part of his finger when a corrections officer slammed a cell door on him, a newly filed lawsuit claims.
Attorneys for the man, Parris Sutton, filed the lawsuit in Lexington’s common pleas court Nov. 25, accusing the sheriff’s department of gross negligence and negligent hiring and training of its employees.
Sutton was being held as a detainee at the detention center in November 2023, awaiting trial where he eventually pleaded guilty to assault and attempted murder, when officers claimed they smelled smoke coming from his cell and proceeded to search it.
As the officers left, not finding anything in his cell, Sutton asked them for toilet paper and was ignored, his lawsuit said.
When Sutton asked a second time, the lawsuit claimed a corrections officer with the last name Roland “aggressively slammed the cell door out of frustration and anger, and when he did so, [Sutton’s] finger was caught between the door frame and the wall,” cutting off the tip of his left index finger.
“Society, as a whole, does not value the civil rights of inmates and detainees, and they’re human beings. That should not be defined by something they did wrong or treated poorly because of something they did,” Elizabeth Dalzell, Sutton’s attorney, told The State when reached by phone.
It’s unclear which detention deputy was involved. A pair of brothers — Jacob and Justin Roland — both work as detention deputies for the sheriff’s department. The lawsuit did not list the officer’s first name.
When reached with questions about the suit, sheriff’s department spokesperson Adam Myrick declined to comment citing pending litigation.
The lawsuit isn’t the first this year to accuse the department of mistreatment of inmates or detainees. It’s also not the first to take issue with how the department trains its officers.
Earlier this year, Dalzell, the attorney for Sutton, filed a different lawsuit on behalf of Cody Smith, a former inmate who claimed the department delayed his medical treatment and dropped him out in the cold while he was suffering from symptoms of AIDS.
At least two other people have filed suits against the department for wrongful arrests — one involving a Florida woman who was arrested and pulled off a cruise ship for a crime in South Carolina the department accused her of committing. Her lawsuit claims she’d never been to South Carolina prior to her arrest.
And late last month, an S.C. Highway Patrol Trooper who was hit by a car during a traffic stop sued the sheriff’s department over its deputy’s involvement in that accident.
This story was originally published December 8, 2025 at 8:43 AM.
