Former officials from a correctional facility in West Virginia have been given jail sentences ranging from three years right up to over two decades, following their involvement in a deadly attack on a prisoner just three years ago, according to the prosecution.
These erstwhile officers represent four out of the total eight who were found guilty in the aftermath of the tragic demise of 37-year-old inmate Quantez Burks. Furthermore, they were deeply complicit in a plot to obscure the truth behind the unprecedented incident which transpired at the Southern Regional Jail located in Beaver, W.Va., on the first day of March in 2022.
Up to date, a total of seven individuals have been sentenced in connection to this unsettling event. When the incident occurred, Mr. Burks had just completed his first day incarcerated in the jail.
The prosecution claims that, as a response to Mr. Burks’ attempted bypassing of a prison guard and his attempt to abandon his designated area, officers guided him to locations within the facility not covered by security camera equipment, colloquially known as ‘blind spots’, with the intention of inflicting punishment.
Mr. Burks was assaulted by the guards using their feet and fists, and even had his head forced against a metal table. Not stopping there, they also twisted and yanked his fingers and used pepper spray on him, despite him being handcuffed, as informed by the prosecuting team.
Shockingly, the prosecuting officials add, the beating did not cease even when Mr. Burks became unresponsive, lying motionless on the floor of a jail cell. Upon arrival, emergency medical personnel declared Mr. Burks dead.
The preliminary postmortem, conducted by state authorities, asserted that the cause of death was a cardiac arrest. This assertion, however, raised skepticism among the Quantez family members after they saw the bruised and battered body of Mr. Burks, as reported by the family’s legal representatives.
In search of the truth, the distraught family ordered a private autopsy. This secondary autopsy shockingly revealed that Mr. Burks had succumbed to injuries suffered from severe blunt force impacts on the head, neck, torso, and extremities. He also apparently had a history of heart disease, as per the report from the legal team.
Details further unfold in this horrifying story as the prosecution alleges that, following Mr. Burks’ death, jail officers devised a strategy to conceal the reality of the brutal assault.
Part of this strategy allegedly involved drafting deceitful reports, spreading fabricated stories to inspectors, and even threatening their colleagues with vicious consequences if they dared confess the actual facts to law enforcement officials, according to prosecution’s statements.
The officers’ actions not only deprived a man of his life but also defaced the principles of integrity, trust and service that law enforcement should uphold. Justice, it seems, has not been done for Quantez Burks, his family, and for a society in need of trust in its law enforcement institutions.