By Reuven Blau
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — An errant basketball and a dumped hot water pot were the trigger points of the latest city correction officer assaults on Rikers Island, jail staff revealed Tuesday.
Inmate J’von Johnson, 21, was upset that a city correction officer asked him to stop tossing a basketball at a gym wall inside the Otis Bantum Correctional Center on Rikers Island last week.
A few days later, Johnson, a reported Bloods member who is in jail on murder and assault, tossed hot water at the face of the officer and punched him in the face.
“I don’t know if he felt threatened because I told him what to do,” said the officer, whose name is being withheld due to security concerns. “They do overreact sometimes.”
The officer — who suffered a broken nose during the attack last Saturday—spoke about the attack during a press conference at the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association main office in Queens Tuesday morning.
He was joined by a colleague who was cut in the face by another inmate earlier this month. That attack happened after the officer ordered inmate Benjamin McMillan to put away a hot pot into a secure cubby.
McMillan, 60, refused, and dropped it on the floor right by the secure area at the George R. Vierno Center on Rikers at 7:54 p.m. March 13, according to the officer.
“He walked away,” the officer recalled. “I thought the whole situation was over.”
But a furious McMillan charged moments later and cut the officer down the side of his face.
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“It was a hectic moment,” the jail staffer said. “He just snapped.”
“I know he’s got some mental issues but I never had any serious issues with him,” he added.
McMillan is in jail facing felony assault charges.
Jail brass point out that both inmates will be hit with added criminal charges and stress that’s there’s zero tolerance for inmates who lash out against officers.
But jail officers say inmates don’t face enough repercussions when they attack officers. The department can only limit visits, commissary and yard time in very specific cases. Additionally, the de Blasio administration has eliminated solitary confinement for inmates 22 years or younger.
The city’s Board of Correction — which has oversight powers over the Correction Department — is contemplating changing some of those rules.
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