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MIAMI – Three South Florida correctional officers have been charged with the murder of an inmate so badly beaten that he died after suffering a punctured lung and internal bleeding, authorities said Thursday, according to CBS News.
The corrections personnel were removing the inmate — identified by the Miami Herald as 60-year-old Ronald Gene Ingram — from a cell in the mental health unit of a Miami-Dade County prison on February 14 to transfer him to a north Florida prison. During the movement, the inmate threw urine on an officer. A beating followed, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said in a press release.
“After the inmate was removed, even though he was in handcuffs and compliant with officer commands, agents say the officers began to beat him. The inmate was beaten so badly he had to be carried to the transport van,” the department said.
The correctional officers were identified as Christopher Rolon, 29, Kirk Walton, 34, and Ronald Connor, 24, according to FDLE.
Ingram was placed alone in what authorities described as a secure compartment inside the transport van. The vehicle made a stop along the way and that was when the prisoner was found dead, laying on a bench inside the van, the statement added.
The medical examiner said the inmate’s death was the result of a punctured lung that led to internal bleeding. Moreover, Ingram had bruises on his face and torso “consistent with a beating,” the New York Post reported.
“Staff misconduct, abuse or criminal behavior have no place in Florida’s correctional system,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a prepared statement following the arrests. “Individuals who are sentenced to incarceration by our criminal courts have lost their freedom but not their basic rights. Inmates should not be subject to forms of ‘back alley’ justice which are actions in violation of Florida law.”
Ingram was convicted of first-degree murder in 1986, and had been serving a life sentence, according to records from the Florida Department of Corrections.
Convicted murderer Ronald Gene Ingram was handcuffed and beaten to death after he threw urine on a correctional officer. (Florida Department of Corrections)
Rolon, Walton and Connor are each charged with second-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, aggravated elder abuse and use of force. Walton faces an additional count of petty theft. Each man was booked at the Miami-Dade County Jail on Friday and are being held without bail.
In the press release, FDLE noted “one correctional officer remains at large,” but did not provide further details.
“What happened in this case is completely unacceptable and is not a representation of our system, or of Dade Correctional Institution as a whole,” Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Ricky Dixon said. “The staff involved in this case failed, and as an agency we will not stand for this.”
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Source: www.lawofficer.com