Leaked video reveals second officer sucker punched and overwhelmed at Arizona’s ‘Jurassic Park’ jail

That is the stunning second a corrections officer is sucker punched then overwhelmed for 3 minutes with nobody coming to assist.

The assault occurred on the Morey Unit of Arizona’s Lewis jail advanced, in line with the video from July 28, obtained by ABC15.

Carlos Garcia, head of the Arizona Correctional Peace Officers Affiliation, informed the outlet the officer that was overwhelmed remains to be going through problems from the assault.

The vicious thumping highlights an extended checklist of security and safety failures inside Arizona prisons, in line with Garcia.

He stated: “He sucker-punches. His radio comes off, as you see. It’s over right here, and now, he has no concept the place he’s at, and the inmate’s wailing on him for no motive in any respect.”

The inmate who attacked the officer was named as Martin Franco, who has been out and in of jail since 2001, and is at the moment doing time for aggravated assault.

His on-line jail profile says that he has a historical past of assaulting different inmates and workers. “He’s fortunate he didn’t kill the workers member. He might have killed him,” Garcia stated.

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The Arizona Division of Corrections stated Franco, a former maximum-security danger, was “correctly housed in a lower-custody unit due to his “prior behaviors, together with his lively participation in case planning.”

The assault lasts about 3 minutes and 35 seconds within the video. After that, the officer is ready to get out of the room.

Garcia continued: “New workers that don’t have the expertise of those convicts are being indoctrinated into, ‘Hey, it’s okay to be alone, be a group participant, shut your mouth.’ So there’s no pushback on what’s harmful.”

The division described the incident as an “remoted, one-on-one assault” and stated “all different inmates had been securely locked of their cells/areas.”

However the video seems to contradict that declare, displaying a second inmate exterior his cell all through the assault. The division additionally stated workers assaults have declined over the previous yr.

However underneath Thornell’s management, assault numbers have sharply climbed total. Inmate-on-inmate assaults rose from 1,436 to 2,330 to three,552 to three,605 throughout fiscal years 2023 via 2026, in line with official division statistics, ABC15 reported.

Workers assaults elevated from 426 to 528 throughout that interval, whereas workers accidents greater than doubled from 38 to 78.

Lewis jail’s Morey Unit has a historical past of violence and has been nicknamed “Homicide Morey.” In 2019, leaked movies obtained by ABC15 uncovered widespread issues with cell doorways that didn’t lock.

Garcia, in line with ABC15, referred to as the jail “Jurassic Park” on the time and repeated the comparability after seeing the newest video.

“This video is a rarity. This escaped Jurassic Park. This dinosaur broke via the gate. Right here we have now every little thing that we dreaded, neatly in a single video,” Garcia stated.