The incident, which led to a criminal charge this week against former Officer Morris Taylor, was caught on surveillance video. It raised questions for Prosecuting Attorney Darrell Moore about why at least four witnesses who were jail employees didn't step in to help the inmate.

Merritt didn't want to comment to a reporter on Thursday. On Friday, he defended his employees after Moore asked Merritt to take a look at one jailer's behavior. Moore saying the behavior wasn't criminal but was questionable.

Taylor was fired on July 11 and criminally charged with misdemeanor assault on Thursday. According to a probable cause statement field in court with the charge, Taylor hit the inmate in the face and took him to the ground, still punching him.

"One of my concerns is why an officer would ask for a special cell to take someone. Is that granted? Then why, in the middle of the beating, why isn't there immediate intervention?" Moore wondered in an interview on Thursday.

“I think they acted reasonably,” Merritt said on Friday. "They're not going to tell a city policeman, a highway patrolman or someone of other agency, ‘This is how you're supposed to conduct this.’ They went and got a supervisor and asked the officer to leave."

Merritt says no one from his department is in trouble -- not the four who witnessed the event and not the one whose actions were called "questionable" by the prosecutor.

"There was a true belief and perception by one of my officers that the fellow was going to strike the city police officer, and so he grabbed hold of him and held him and, of course, during that time there were some blows struck by the officer. Certainly he wasn't holding him for that purpose,” said Merritt.

The sheriff added his jail staff was truly in shock at what had happened, and that the booking area of the jail is the most volatile.