By C1 staff
PALMER, Alaska — The president of the Alaska Correctional Officers’ Association recently settled a lawsuit over retribution he received after pepper spraying an allegedly combative inmate.
According to the Frontiersman, Association President Randy McLellan was demoted, reprimanded and re-trained by being pepper sprayed along with officers he supervised.
The inmate McLellan pepper sprayed was kicking a door open while officers were attempting to lock it.
In addition to the re-training, McLellan was suspended, which was reversed in the settlement.
“As many or most of you have already heard, Association President Randy McLellan has got his stripes back, is being made whole for wages and benefits lost due to the demotion, is being made whole for a separate 96-hour suspension which has been overturned and his court case has been resolved,” Brad Wilson, business manager of the union, wrote on the union’s website.
“This universal settlement was reached just days before the demotion arbitration was set to begin.”
McLellan was also suspended for not distributing mail during his shift and telling supervisors that their hunt for something to reprimand him with was “pathetic.” This suspension was also reversed.
“By unjustly attacking Randy for using [pepper spray] when its use was appropriate and necessary, Management sent a dangerous message which could cause others to hesitate and result in someone being unnecessarily injured,” Wilson wrote.
The union said management was gunning for McLellan due to his televised appearance saying that there was a lack of clean laundry at the facility, thus an increase in the rates of infectious diseases at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial facility. McLellan said he was instrumental in fighting off an attempt to do away with week on/week off shifts in the department.
Fights over work shifts are ongoing at the department and have progressed through arbitration to the state’s Superior Court with regular updates posted to the union’s website.
McLellan will be transferred to the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center women’s prison in Eagle River as part of the settlement.