Inmates within a Rikers Island correctional facility made headlines after they reportedly saved a female corrections officer from being sexually assaulted by another 290 pound convict. They and responding officers tore through Plexiglas of one of the Anna M. Kross Center’s control bubbles and slipped in to restrain the assailant until more officers arrived.
Raleek Young, the alleged assailant, is serving a five-to-ten-year sentence for raping a 13-year-old girl in 2007. He claimed he needed to pick up a mattress in a separate unit, an act that required him to pass through the reinforced bubble. Upon entering, Young dragged the officer into an adjacent bathroom and blocked her from opening the security door. There he choked her, tore through her sweater, and readied himself for the assault.
The jail brass called the attack a “use of force” incident, a very common occurrence in all correctional facilities. This only angered the facility’s officers who refused to return to their posts until they could be persuaded by their union president by his promise to take up their cause.
Norman Seabrook, President of Correction Officers Benevolent Association (COBA), was enraged upon hearing there was not a secondary arrest and addition of charges. “There must be accountability,” Seabrook seethed. “Officers are assaulted every day, and (Bronx DA Robert Johnson) has the audacity to say, ‘Not today, bring him back at another time.’ I will not tolerate it. I will not stand for it.”
This is only compounded when Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte issued a memorandum stating:
“For the vast majority of you who make a point to follow your training, thanks and keep up the good work. For those of you who do not yet realize that reducing violence starts with you, you must do better starting right now.”
Seabrook was quick to identify Ponte’s message as a thinly veiled attack against the officer.
“This is outrageous that the correction commissioner would victimize (her) twice and make it seem like it’s her fault that she was sexually assaulted by an inmate,” he fumed.
Following these complaints, Young was ultimately charged with attempted rape, sexual abuse, forcible touching, assault and harassment.
Seabrook was thankful for the assistance received from the inmates. “I appreciate (them) helping a sister officer because that could have been their mother, wife or sister,”