There’s much more hassle brewing on the Massachusetts jail the place an assault final month left 5 officers injured: a class-action lawsuit for what inmates say was a brutally violent retaliatory marketing campaign by guards.
A “Retaliatory Force Campaign” in January and February of 2020 at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Heart, plaintiff attorneys allege, “consisted of officers attacking more than 100 prisoners using extreme, malicious, and cruel methods of force designed not to restore order, but to inflict pain, fear, and trauma.”
The violence included “beating and kicking prisoners; gouging eyes; grabbing testicles; smashing faces into the ground or wall; deploying Taser guns, pepper ball guns, and other chemical agents; ordering K9s to menace and bite prisoners; and excessively tightening handcuffs and forcing prisoners’ arms into unnatural and painful positions, among other positional torture tactics.”
The lawsuit targets Massachusetts Division of Correction Commissioner Carol Mici, a few of her chief directors in the course of the time interval the violence is alleged to have occurred in addition to a number of particular DOC captains, lieutenants, sergeants and officers who the lawsuit alleges participated within the marketing campaign in January and February 2020 in opposition to inmates.
The marketing campaign got here after “long simmering tensions between a small group of prisoners and officers in the N1 Unit at (the prison) culminated in an altercation, during which several officers were injured.” The difficulty inmates had been faraway from the jail, the criticism filed in 2022 states.
“It was under control very quickly,” David Milton, of Prisoners Authorized Providers of Massachusetts and one of many plaintiff attorneys, informed the Herald. “Nevertheless … there was a weeks-long campaign we called the retaliatory violence campaign in which 100 prisoners were brutalized and subjected to all manner of extreme and malicious force not for any legitimate security purpose but to punish everyone for the actions of a couple people involved in assaulting the officers.”
U.S. District Courtroom Decide Margaret R. Guzman final week licensed the lawsuit as a category motion. She dominated that the category is to be outlined as “all individuals who were incarcerated at SBCC who were subjected to uses of force from January 10, 2020, to February 6, 2020” — which is extra narrowly outlined than the plaintiff’s requested definition of “all individuals who are now, or who will be in the future, incarcerated” on the jail.
Her ruling additionally grants a subclass of “all Black and Latinx individuals incarcerated at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center who were subjected to uses of force” throughout that point interval.
This subclass is in search of damages for racial discrimination. The criticism claims that these prisoners had been focused for “especially brutal and degrading treatment, such as yanking and ripping out dreadlocks and braids and shouting racist comments and slurs as the officers assaulted them. Some officers wore a white supremacist logo on their helmets.”
“Class certification is a crucial step toward accountability for the violence inflicted on incarcerated people at Souza-Baranowski,” stated plaintiff legal professional Kayla Ghantous, of the Boston legislation agency Hogan Lovells.
“The importance of making it a class is that now everyone who was subject to unlawful force is able to have their day in court instead of just the nine people who brought the lawsuit,” Milton informed the Herald.
Milton added that the kind of allegations contained within the criticism is “not brand new” for the jail.
“Since this sort of culture of violence at Souza-Baranowski has been the case since it opened in the late 90s and there have been a number of lawsuits over the years,” he stated.
Either side request a jury trial. A trial date has not but been set.
A DOC spokesman informed the Herald, “We have no comment on pending litigation.”
A spokesman for the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union informed the Herald, “The union is aware of the lawsuit against the DOC administration and will support its union members in the legal process.”
Violence at SBCC
The category motion lawsuit was licensed shortly after three inmates had been charged within the brutal assault on the jail final month that injured 5 correction officers, together with one who was stabbed 12 instances and suffered a punctured lung.
Investigators on the finish of final month filed felony complaints in Clinton District Courtroom in opposition to Jose R. Crespo, 39; Heriberto Rivera-Negron, 36; and Jeffrey Tapia. They’re every charged with mayhem, armed assault to homicide and assault to homicide.
The correction officers’ union says the DOC has not accomplished sufficient to right troubling developments on the jail, which had included the invention of dozens of “shivs,” or makeshift knives, on the jail simply within the month earlier than the assault.
Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union video screenshot
The video of the assault at Souza-Baranowski confirmed a correction officer getting attacked from behind by an inmate ready by a cell. (Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union video screenshot)
