Allegheny County corrections officer suspended amid allegations of assault on inmate
An Allegheny County Jail corrections officer was escorted out of the building and suspended pending potential termination Friday following allegations that they assaulted an inmate.
Warden Orlando Harper provided little other detail on the incident during a news conference Friday afternoon.
Harper said a jail employee received a phone call Friday in which a family member of the inmate reported the alleged assault. The information was immediately relayed to jail leadership, and the officer was pulled from the pod and escorted out of the building, the warden said.
As of Friday afternoon, the alleged victim was being seen and cleared by medical personnel, and no additional information about their condition was available, said jail spokesperson Jesse Geleynse.
An investigation will be conducted by Allegheny County Police Department internal affairs, Harper said.
Paula Reed Ward is a TribLive reporter covering federal and Allegheny County courts. She joined the Trib in 2020 after spending nearly 17 years at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where she was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team. She is the author of “Death by Cyanide.” She can be reached at pward@triblive.com.
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