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The altercation Friday evening involved a group of immigration detainees and comes amid growing complaints about a lack of safety precautions for the coronavirus.
In a news conference Saturday, Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson said the conflict began when a group of ten ICE detainees reported symptoms consistent with COVID-19 but refused to go to the jail’s medical unit for testing.
Hodgson said the evening turned violent after he forced a detainee to hang up a phone call with his attorney to report for testing. The detainees reportedly broke windows, threw a chair at the sheriff and damaged property before deputies subdued them using pepper spray.
Ira Alakalay said he was the attorney on the other end of the phone call while the violence was breaking out. A second detainee called him a few minutes later.
“He was absolutely terrified,” Alkalay said. “He was crying, he was coughing and gasping for breath and saying that people were dying, that people were gassed, that they were being beaten. He sounded absolutely in fear for his life.”
Since April 1, ten staff members have tested positive for COVID-19. The sheriff has reported no positive cases among the inmates, though the ten that reported symptoms Friday have not been tested, according to Alkalay.
Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy is calling for an independent investigation and the public release of surveillance footage from the altercation after receiving what his team described as “reports from victims, lawyers, and immigration advocates that Sheriff Thomas Hodgson and his deputies assaulted a group of ICE detainees held at the facility.”
Hodgson struck back shortly after, “The only investigation that ought to be done right now is of people like Joe Kennedy and these members of congress who have actually encouraged these people and supported them to come into this country illegally and then defended them as though they have a right to walk around our neighborhoods when they know they’ve committed crimes against innocent people.”
Three detainees were hospitalized after the altercation and all involved are now locked down in individual cells.
