A former Alabama prison supervisor has been charged with using excessive force against two inmates. The U.S. Department of Justice also alleges Mohammad Shahid Jenkins also misled investigators. The DOJ indictment accuses the former supervisor of assaulting two inmate when hit and sprayed them with chemical spray. Jenkins is also charged with misleading investigators about one of the incidents. It was not clear if Jenkins has a lawyer to speak on his behalf. The indictment accuses Jenkins of depriving the two inmates of their right to be free from excessive force and depriving the two inmates of their right to be free from those attacks.
In a 2022 incident, Jenkins is accused of kicking an inmate, hitting him, spraying him with chemical spray, striking him with a can of chemical spray and then striking him with a shoe. In a 2021 incident, he is accused of spraying an inmate with chemical spray multiple times, striking him with a can of chemical spray and hitting him.
The indictment also charged Jenkins with two obstruction-related offenses, accusing him of falsifying a prison incident report about the 2022 incident and then of engaging in misleading conduct toward federal agents who were interviewing him about it. The Department of Justice has an ongoing lawsuit against the Alabama prison system, accusing the state of housing male inmates in deadly and violent conditions. The Alabama Public Radio news team spent six months in a national award-winning investigating Alabama’s prison system. That probe helped led to a separate DOJ investigation of Alabama’s corrections department.
