By Joe Atmonavage
NJ.com
ESSEX COUNTY, N.J. — Three correctional officers have been charged with assaulting a detainee at a county jail, while a sergeant is charged with not intervening in the attack that left the man’s face swollen and bruised, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Friday.
Essex County correctional officers Angel Chaparro, 38, Damion James, 40, Luis Ortiz, 29, and Sgt. Herman Pride, 51, are each charged with one count of conspiracy to violate a person’s civil rights, authorities said.
Pride and Ortiz were arrested Thursday and released on bail, while Chaparro and James are set to appear in federal court Friday afternoon.
The charges arise from an incident on Aug. 17, 2020 at the Essex County Correctional Facility after a federal pre-trial detainee reportedly squirted a mixture of urine, yogurt and milk onto a correctional officer, according to the criminal complaint.
In response, the detainee, who is not named in the complaint, was put into a disciplinary cell at the jail.
The officers began to conduct a strip search of the detainee, but shortly after they began, James allegedly struck the man first in the body, according to the complaint.
Chaparro and Ortiz then joined in on the alleged assault, striking the detainee multiple times as the officers held him down, according to the complaint. The victim said he saw Pride, the sergeant, standing inside the cell watching the alleged assault, the complaint says.
“Pride did not at any point attempt to stop the assault,” the complaint says. One correctional officer told authorities that at the end of the alleged assault, he heard Pride say, “Okay, that’s enough.”
Ortiz told one officer, according to the complaint, that the victim got beat up and they “whooped his ass,” according to the complaint.
The victim was not offered medical attention, even after he later told Pride that he would lie and say he suffered his injuries by falling off his bed if the sergeant would get him medical attention.
But Pride refused to do so, according to the complaint.
Two days later, a supervisory officer in charge of the housing unit where the victim was still being held observed the man’s face, which “appeared to be swollen and discolored,” according to the complaint. The supervisor deemed the injuries serious enough to “constitute an emergency situation,” and the victim was subsequently taken to the emergency room at University Hospital in Newark.
“The victim was diagnosed with large swelling and tenderness in the right side of his face, and discoloration and bruising around his right eye,” the complaint says.
Authorities also claim the officers involved in the alleged assault did not document what transpired, even though they are required to do so under the jail’s policies.
In a “Strip/Body Cavity Search Report” that Chaparro signed, he indicated that no force was used, according to the complaint. The other officers did not fill out a “use of force” form, despite them being required to do so.
Attorneys for three of the officers did not immediately return a request for comment. Neither did an Essex County spokesperson.
Chaparro’s attorney declined to comment.
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