Cook County Jail officer charged with beating inmate using handcuffs over his knuckles
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A correctional officer at Cook County Jail has been charged with beating an inmate who had requested a medical evaluation in December 2021.
Reginald Roberson, 52, has been charged with aggravated battery and official misconduct. As CBS 2's Marissa Perlman reported, it was the second announcement of charges against a Cook County corrections officer in as many days.
Cook County prosecutors said, on Dec. 29, 2021, a 29-year-old inmate was in the bullpen at the jail, when he requested a medical evaluation, which Roberson denied.
When the victim stepped out of the bullpen and started walking toward the medical facility, Robreson grabbed his shirt and shoved him back in the bullpen and closed the door. Roberson then grabbed a pair of handcuffs, slid them over his right hand, and locked them in place around his knuckles.
After the inmate slid open the bullpen door and tried to step through to ask when he would be taken back to his wing, Roberson went into the bullpen, and the inmate raised his hands to surrender, before Roberson punched him three times in the face with the handcuffs wrapped around his knuckles, prosecutors said.
Roberson then took the inmate down to the ground.
The inmate suffered a cut on his ear and a cut under his left eye, which required stitches.
The beating was captures on surveillance video.
"Under no circumstances should a guard take a handcuff, wrap it around their knuckles and begin punching someone who is detained or incarcerated," said Jenny Vollen-Katz, executive director of the John Howard Association, a statewide independent oversight group.
Roberson was de-deputized after the beating, and removed from duties working with inmates while a criminal investigation was launched.
He turned himself in on Wednesday ahead of his first court appearance, and later had his bond set at $20,000.
Roberson is due back in court on May 10.
The Cook County Sheriff's office is seeking to have him fired. He has been with the sheriff's office since March of 1999.
The announcement of charges against Roberson came the day after correctional officer Richard Smith, 44, was charged with beating a jail inmate who was handcuffed to a wall last fall.
Smith was working in the Cook County Jail's residential treatment unit – which deals with medical and mental health issues – on Sept. 20, as an inmate was handcuffed to a wall by his left arm in one of the unit's dorms.
As Smith and another officer approached the inmate to talk to him, Smith started hitting the inmate in the head and body, according to Smith's arrest report. The beating was caught on video and showed that, as the other officer tried to gain control of the inmate's right arm, Smith kept beating the inmate, striking him more than 30 times, even after other back-up officers arrived.
Ultimately, Smith was escorted off the tier. He has been charged with aggravated battery and official misconduct, and turned himself in on Tuesday.
The sheriff's office now will seek to suspend him without pay, and will recommend the Sheriff's Merit Board fire him. He has been employed with the sheriff's office since 2010.
The two arrests don't surprise Vollen-Katz, but she does believe there's likely more we don't see.
Perlman: "How often do these cases go unreported?"
Vollen-Katz: "The reality is we don't know. We don't know what we don't know. What we do know is that we don't know a lot of what happens because this information isn't readily available or tracked."
Behind bars, she said there are not watchdogs in place for correctional officers.
"It's time that this information be shared publicly, be made more available in the same way we are doing this around police," she said. "It needs to be done around those people who work inside jails and prisons."
Both officers turned themselves in this week and the sheriff's office recommended they both be fired.
