By Justin Muszynski
Hartford Courant
SOMERS, Conn. — A correction officer was assaulted by an inmate at a facility in Somers on Monday.
The attack was reported around 3:20 p.m. while a female officer was conducting a security check in the Osborn Correctional Institution, according to the Connecticut Department of Correction.
DOC officials said the attack occurred without “warning or provocation.” Officials allege an inmate began choking and punching a correction officer in the face.
According to a statement from AFSCME Council 4 union officials, the female correction officer was working in the industries area at Osborn Correctional Institution when she was allegedly “violently attacked by a male inmate in an attempted sexual assault. The inmate attacked her from behind and dragged her into a camera ‘dead zone,’ — where the facility lacks any camera coverage.”
The inmate, who has not been identified, was then restrained by staff members who responded to the area and separated the two, officials said. The inmate was then taken to the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution’s Restrictive Housing Unit.
“The officer was left to fight for her life, without backup, against a male inmate serving 20 years for other sexual crimes,” union officials alleged. “The officer, in her struggle to save her own life, sustained a fractured eye socket, as well as other significant abrasions and bruising to her upper body and bloodied face.”
The correction officer was taken to an area hospital where she was treated and released, according to the DOC.
“Violence against Department of Correction staff is unacceptable,” DOC commissioner Angel Quiros said in a statement Tuesday. “Anyone who makes the ill-advised decision to assault a correction officer will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
“The safety of the agency’s brave men and women is my top priority,” he added. “We will thoroughly review this incident, and revise our policies if necessary, in order to prevent an incident like this from happening again. My thoughts and prayers are with the injured officer and her family.”
Union officials from AFSCME Council 4 noted that the alleged assault underscored the growing crisis inside Connecticut’s correctional facilities “marked by rising assaults, a dangerous influx of drugs, severe staffing shortages, and a lack of leadership from the DOC administration. Our officers continue to put their lives on the line every day, without sufficient support from the state.”
Citing an investigation into the incident being conducted by Connecticut State Police, DOC officials did not release any further information.
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