Surveillance video shows brawl at Bronx juvenile facility that left 20 officers hurt
MOTT HAVEN, Bronx (WABC) -- Newly obtained surveillance video shows the melee that the Correction Officers' Benevolent Association says left 20 officers injured at the Horizon Juvenile Center in the Bronx.
It shows the chaos as officers step in to break up a massive fight Wednesday morning at the facility in the Mott Haven section, which just opened on Monday.
The officers were hurt trying to get it under control, and union officials say all 20 officers were taken to local hospitals for treatment.
The Horizon Juvenile Center has been taking in 16- and 17-year-old Rikers Island inmates under the state's new Raise the Age legislation that treats 16- and 17-year-olds as juveniles instead of adults.
The union notes that correction officers can't use pepper spray at Horizon as they can at Rikers Island, so they must use force to get inmates under control.
"We can call them kids, whatever they want," COBA President Elias Husamudeen said. "This place has to be shut down until it can be made safe. It needs to be shut down. It wasn't ready October 1, and it's not ready today."
Husamudeen said the city responded by sending additional correction officers.
"So their answer is to just send more correction officers, to send more of us without our tools, without out equipment, without the things that we use to keep the violence down in the jails," he said. "Which is not the answer."
There was no immediate comment from the Department of Correction, but the Administration for Children's Services -- which operates both Horizon and the Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brownsville -- released the following statement:
"We are in a transitionary period for a historic reform that's never been done before, and there have been some incidents involving youth and officers, which were quickly addressed. None of the injuries were serious, but we take these and all incidents seriously."
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