By Jamie Schram and Bruce Golding
New York Post
NEW YORK — Rikers Island officers were ordered to just stand by and watch as a colleague got savagely beaten by a mob of inmates — because correction supervisors feared getting hit with criminal charges, The Post has learned.
About 15 violent jailbirds pummeled the unidentified victim inside the Anna M. Kross Center on Saturday, sources said.
Other correction officers immediately responded to the unprovoked attack, but were ordered not to intervene, the sources said.
“The captains gave the officers a direct order to not use force to break up the assault; meanwhile, an officer was right in front of them being attacked,” a source said.
“That would’ve been a green light to destroy the inmates, but out of fear of indictment, the captains said: ‘Don’t use force, you could get indicted.’ ”
The attack lasted about 10 minutes until the inmates “lost steam,” but they later went wild again and tore down the ceiling in an intake room where they had been herded, a source said.
Full story: Rikers guards kept from rescuing a comrade — to avoid lawsuits