By C1 Staff
NEW YORK — A captain and five correctional officers with Rikers Island Correctional Center were fired Wednesday for beating an inmate while he was hogtied and shackled.
NY Daily News reports that Capt. Budnarine Behari and COs Geronimo Almanzar, Vincent Siderman, Paul Bunton, Raul Marquez, and Ramon Cabrera were fired.
Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte’s decision to fire them came after a judge recommended the action in September, calling the 2012 beating of Robert Hinton an act of “brazen misconduct.”
“We must have a higher expectation of performance in situations like this, and while acknowledging how difficult the officers’ job is, we must also accept the need to earn back the faith and trust of the community we serve,” Ponte said in a statement.
Hinton was being held in a now-shuttered solitary confinement dorm for mentally ill inmates when he was beaten in April of 2012. He suffered a broken nose, fractured back and other injuries.
Jail surveillance cameras showed the correctional officers carrying him hogtied and handcuffed into his solitary confinement cell. The 10-minute long beating was not caught on camera.
Hinton has filed a federal lawsuit over the beating.
The president of the Correction Officer’s Benevolent Association said the officers plan to appeal to get their jobs back.