Jail guards poisoning inmates for laughs?
While it sounds far-fetched, stranger things have happened . . . and not that long ago.
Two former jail inmates recently filed suit against Franklin County Sheriff Dennis Pike, jail supervisors and staff claiming they were intentionally fed poisoned meals in 2008.
A couple of years ago, we might have dismissed the claims as ridiculous. Certainly jail guards have better things to do, not to mention more professionalism, than that.
Yet, two high-profile incidents have cast an unfortunate shadow on correction officers everywhere.
Last fall, an Androscoggin County Jail supervisor was fired and another resigned for on-the-job pranks.
Jail security video showed the men using duct tape to bind a fellow guard to a chair. They then wheeled the victim into an elevator and sent him to another floor.
In another incident, one corrections officer put another in a choke hold. Minutes later, the officer was seen with his head on his desk. He later said he felt disoriented and nauseous for about half an hour.
The incidents were, according to County Sheriff Guy Desjardins “totally, totally unacceptable.” We would add outrageous and unprofessional.
Two years ago, a guard at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham was sentenced to four months in jail for having sex with two female inmates.
Another guard pleaded to misdemeanor charges and was fined, according to the Portland Press Herald, for failing to report his co-worker’s misconduct.
The women later filed suit against the Correctional Center, the two guards and the three top officials in the Maine Department of Corrections.
In this latest allegation of misconduct, two former inmates of the Franklin County Jail say they were served a meal that made them “violently ill.”
They say a third inmate suffered similar “gastro-intestinal distress.”
They claim an officer later told them that the staff had watched the men eat the food and then joked about making the three men sick.
The men say they were threatened if they reported the incident.
The men say they were sick for several days, and requested medical attention but were denied. They say they continued to suffer aftereffects for weeks.
They also claim they were threatened and harassed until they were released.
They say the food was “deliberately adulterated” with pepper spray, mace or some other “noxious chemical.”
Of course, convicted criminals don’t have the highest credibility. What’s more, it’s certainly not unusual for inmates and corrections officers to be at odds.
Yet these complaints seem highly specific and detailed. Plus, there have been at least two other proven documented cases in the past two years of serious guard misconduct.
There are, of course, hundreds of hard-working, professional corrections officers working in Maine. They perform often thankless work under difficult conditions and too often for minimal pay.
Still, these charges deserve a full investigation, either by the Maine Department of Corrections or the Attorney General’s Office.
The guards involved deserve either to be quickly cleared or made to face criminal charges.
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