By Kevin Rector
The Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE — Two corrections officers at the Baltimore City Detention Center were injured shortly after noon on Wednesday when a detainee refused to enter his cell and a struggle ensued, the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services said.
The inmate, at the jail on drug charges, was being transferred to the cell when he refused to enter it, according to Rick Binetti, a department spokesman.
As the two male officers began trying to subdue the inmate, both received minor injuries, Binetti said. Both were transported to Mercy Hospital by corrections officials as a precautionary measure only, Binetti said.
No other inmates were involved, and the assault does not appear to have been premeditated, officials said. The incident is under investigation.
The jail has been the site of increased security measures following the federal indictment in April of 13 corrections officers and nearly a dozen inmates on charges of operating a drug smuggling and racketeering enterprise out of the facility.
The corrections department has also been under heavy scrutiny lately from the union that represents corrections officers because of 15 inmate-on-officer assaults that have occurred at the North Branch Correctional Institution in Cumberland since the end of June.
In one of those assaults, which occurred Monday, an officer was stabbed after having been threatened by an inmate earlier. The officer was not aware of the threat, but corrections officials were, and an investigation is underway to determine why the officer wasn’t warned.