By Corrections1 Staff
CLEARWATER, Fla. — A Florida Sheriff’s detention deputy was suspended after he accidently let a mentally unstable inmate into a common area while the door to another mentally troubled inmate’s cell was still open, according to The Tampa Tribune.
Surveillance videos show the first inmate wander into the second inmate’s cell and punch him repeatedly. Both inmates were under psychiatric observation in a wing of the jail’s health care facility.
Officials said it was hard to tell which injuries were caused from the fight and which ones were self-inflicted for the attacked inmate, John Jeffers.
The attacker, Ryan Maldonado is known as a “problematic inmate,” according to documents and was known to kick and flood the toilet.
Inmates are typically allowed out of their cell one at a time. Deputy Michael Zigante allowed Jeffers to use the phone and take a shower. Jeffers then returned to his cell where he lay down on a mattress on the floor, however his door wasn’t shut behind him. Then Maldonado was allowed outside his cell. Video shows him wandering around before going in Jeffers’ cell and beating him.
Zigante was found to be “inefficient” and “ineffective” in his duties during the incident, which occurred in January according to an internal affairs file released Wednesday.
He served a 64-hour suspension in June.