Teen sues KY juvenile justice guard over broken arm at Paducah detention center

A teenage boy is suing a guard accused of shattering his arm in a state-run juvenile detention center last October during an encounter that led to the guard’s firing and arrest on felony abuse charges.

As the Herald-Leader first reported last January, internal investigators concluded that Correctional Capt. Tyler Grant Lynn broke the arms of two youths in separate incidents Oct. 12, 2024, at the McCracken Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Paducah.

After the story was published, local prosecutors pursued charges against Lynn, 30, that could bring up to five years in prison. That criminal case is pending. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for later this month.

The Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice, which operates the Paducah facility, has been plagued for years by reports of abuse and neglect of youths in its custody. The U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation into the state’s juvenile detention centers last year, but the status of that probe is unknown.

In the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Paducah, the youth, identified as “M.W.,” said he was the second teenage boy to have his arm broken by Lynn that evening.

“This was a completely unnecessary use of force against a child who posed no threat,” Ashley Abaray, a Louisville attorney representing M.W., said in a prepared statement. “Captain Lynn knew his actions were excessive.”

M.W. was 13 years old and serving a 30-day sentence for contempt of court related to school truancy. He stood 5-foot-3 and weighed 140 pounds, according to the suit.

While Lynn escorted him down the hall, M.W. reached toward the window of another youth’s cell and said “Fist bump,” he said in his suit.

Lynn — who was 5-foot-11 and 350 pounds — responded by grabbing the boy by his left arm and using his body weight to shove the boy against the wall, and then slammed him into a door and a water fountain, according to the suit. As Lynn put more pressure on the boy’s arm, a loud snapping sound could be heard, and the arm visibly gave way and was bent backward over his head, according to the suit.

The encounter was captured on security video, later watched by internal investigators for the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet.

At no time did the much smaller boy resist Lynn, according to the suit. Instead, he cried out in pain and begged Lynn to stop hurting him.

Minutes later, after the mandatory post-restraint exam, Nurse Miranda Tapp gave the boy an Ibuprofen, an over-the-counter pain reliever, according to the suit.

Despite suffering from serious pain, the boy did not receive appropriate medical attention for three more days, until Oct. 15, 2024, when a physician’s assistant ordered an X-ray that showed his arm had a comminuted fracture, meaning it was broken into three or more pieces, according to the suit.

After he finished his 30-day sentence and was released Oct. 17, 2024, M.W. underwent surgery on his arm to insert plates and screws, requiring physical therapy and leaving him with scarring, pain, limited movement and reduced strength, according to the suit.

In the suit, M.W. asks for damages appropriate for violation of his civil rights, plus reimbursement for his medical expenses.

An attorney representing Lynn did not immediately return a call seeking comment Wednesday.

Apart from M.W., Lynn is accused of breaking another teenaged boy’s arm several hours earlier that same evening.

Youths were locked alone in their cells, yelling unhappily through the doors because they had not been let out, several of them told investigators in interviews later.

One youth cursed at staff through his door. That led to a verbal confrontation with Lynn, who told the boy, “Please say something else.” He gestured at the boy with his hands, palms up, fingers waving, as if to invite further comments, investigators wrote in their report on the incident.

After ordering the boy’s cell door opened so they could directly face each other, Lynn sang to him, “It’s a hard knock life, poor me!”

Lynn told the boy, now standing in the cell’s doorway, to spin around, face into the cell and start walking backward to him. The boy refused to spin around. Lynn and another guard, charged into the room to restrain him, investigators wrote.

As Lynn tried to put the boy in a “T-stance” restraint, there was “a smacking or popping noise,” they wrote.

The noise was a spiral fracture in the boy’s left humerus, according to a hospital exam three days later.

Video showed the boy whimpered and cried from the pain and begged Lynn to let go of his arm. But other guards who were present — including Lynn’s wife, also a captain at the facility — told investigators later the boy had no complaints about his arm hurting, investigators wrote.

A nurse on duty failed to perform a required post-restraint exam of the boy despite telling officials she did, investigators wrote. She noted no injuries and wrote in her notes the boy had full range of motion in his arm even though the boy said he couldn’t move it.

Lynn was fired two months after the incidents. He had worked at the facility for five years.

Using the Kentucky Open Records Act, the Herald-Leader obtained a Dec. 12, 2024, letter from Juvenile Justice Commissioner Randy White to Lynn terminating his employment because of how he handled the boys’ restraints.

“As supervisory staff, you are expected to set an example for staff and residents,” White told the captain. “Your conduct does not meet the expectations of not only (the McCracken Regional Juvenile Detention Center) but the department as well.”

John Cheves

Lexington Herald-Leader

(859) 334-0802

John Cheves is a government accountability reporter at the Lexington Herald-Leader. He joined the newspaper in 1997 and previously worked in its Washington and Frankfort bureaus and covered the courthouse beat. Support my work with a digital subscription