Two employees of the Alabama Department of Corrections were indicted yesterday in the assault of an incarcerated man at Staton Correctional Facility in Elmore, Alabama. The U.S. Department of Justice announced that a federal grand jury returned a five-count indictment against Sergeant Devlon Williams and Correctional Officer Larry Managan Jr.
This makes six criminal indictments charging staff with abusing inmates at the Staton/Elmore prison complex since 2017. One lieutenant, two sergeants, and two officers have been charged in federal court. A sixth officer, Jeremy Singleton, was charged with manslaughter in state court last July for beating a hogtied prisoner at Elmore prison in November 2017.
According to court documents, Williams and Managan assaulted an inmate at Staton “by striking him with their feet and with a collapsible baton.” The indictment also charges Managan with assaulting the inmate “by walking on the inmate.”
The culture of violence and abuse of power at the Staton/Elmore prison complex is well documented. EJI filed a complaint in 2013 detailing a pattern by staff at the highest levels of engaging in excessive physical violence against incarcerated men.
In 2018, EJI re-initiated its investigation at Elmore Correctional Facility and the adjacent Staton Correctional Facility and uncovered a pattern of officer-on-prisoner assaults, officer complicity in drug trafficking and extortion, and a growing rate of abuse and violence.
A culture of violence and misconduct is widespread among the leadership in Alabama’s prison system. The Justice Department in December 2020 filed a civil rights complaint against the State of Alabama alleging that its failure to protect incarcerated people from violence, excessive force, and abuse by prison staff and its indifference to the high rate of homicides, violence, and sexual abuse in the state’s prisons violate the Constitution.