A correction officer was allegedly slashed in the head by a gangbanger during a fight inside troubled Rikers Island on Wednesday — leading the officer’s union to call for the firing of the jail’s security boss as attacks soar inside the lockup.
The worker was breaking up a brawl in the Otis Bantum Correctional Center when accused Bloods member Kareem Reid, 30, allegedly knifed him from behind — even though the correction officer was protecting him from two rivals, said the guard, who requested anonymity.
“I didn’t believe it because I’m here trying to protect him and the inmate is cutting an officer,” the 34-year-old worker told The Post.
The bloodshed erupted when the officer unleashed pepper spray at the beginning of the fight, leading Reid’s rivals to run away, he said.
But as many as 15 inmates then surrounded the officer, according to his account of the attack.
“I had the victim behind me to keep him from the other inmates getting to him,” the correction officer said.
“At that point, they approach him, and out of nowhere, I feel swiping motions towards the back of my neck…That’s when inmates start yelling, ‘He’s cutting him, he’s cutting him.’”
The officer then pepper sprayed him but it had little effect on the blade-wielding menace.
“I hit him with the spray and he’s still coming after me,” he said.
Eventually he and another co-worker wrestled him to the ground as backup arrived.
“It happened so quick, but it felt like an eternity,” the shaken up worker recalled Wednesday, hours after the assault landed him at Mount Sinai Hospital.
Reid, who was in lockup on murder charges for a 2020 Bronx homicide, was later charged with assault with a weapon, sources said.
The correction officer has been attacked four times since he started working for the DOC in 2018.
He said officers are “sitting ducks” while chaos runs rampant inside the beleaguered jail.
“Inmates need more consequences,” he said. “We are pretty much sitting ducks in the housing area and these guys are just running around doing whatever they want.”
The sentiment was echoed by Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association President Benny Boscio, as he called for the axing of Ronald Brereton, DOC’s Deputy Commissioner of Security Operations.
“Today’s slashing incident marks the latest epic security failure under the disastrous tenure of Deputy Commissioner for Security, Ronald Brereton, whose sole responsibility is to keep facilities safe and secure,” Boscio said in a statement.
Brereton was appointed to the position in May 2022.
“Under his watch, since December of last year, there have been nearly 140 slashing incidents, 92 stabbing incidents, and over 400 assaults on Correction Officers,” the union head added.
“Instead of stepping up critical searches for weapons, like the one used today, and bolstering the manpower of our Emergency Services Unit, to make our facilities safer, Brereton has been preoccupied with bringing punitive disciplinary charges against our officers.”
“Before his incompetency gets one of our officers or an inmate under our supervision killed, Brereton should be fired immediately,” Boscio seethed.
“The health and safety of everyone who works and lives in our facilities will always be our top priority, and we will not tolerate any act of violence against the hard working men and women of this department,” DOC Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie said in a statement. “Our Correction Intelligence Bureau quickly worked with the Bronx DA to process this individual for re-arrest.”
Additional reporting by Tina Moore
