Lawsuit alleges assault, retaliation by prison officers at two Jessup prisons

An inmate at a prison in Howard County sued the Maryland Department of Safety and Correctional Services on Wednesday, alleging he was beaten and faced retaliation at a second prison after he filed a complaint.

Shawn Addison, 24, of Washington, D.C., says he was humiliated and assaulted by guards at the Jessup Correctional Institution (JCI) last December, suffering a torn meniscus, damage to his eye, bruising, cuts and post-traumatic stress disorder.

He was sent to a hospital and transferred to a nearby prison, Maryland Correctional Institution – Jessup (MCI-J), where guards allegedly allowed him to be attacked again. Addison’s complaint states they served him food contaminated with fecal matter and brought “unfounded” administrative assault charges against him, which were later overturned, for the December 2023 attack.

Addison’s lawyers are Monica Basche, of Brown, Goldstein & Levy, and Allen Honick, of Furman Honick.

“DPSCS’s ongoing failures of oversight and accountability, as highlighted by the results of last week’s audit, have caused yet another prisoner to be victimized, beaten, and permanently injured by correctional officers on the taxpayers’ dime,” Basche and Honick said in a statement provided to The Daily Record. They declined to comment beyond the complaint and the brief statement.

Addison sued DPSCS, JCI Warden Robert Dean and correctional officers Chris Asangong, Desmond Ross, and Kenneth Gray in Howard County Circuit Court. His suit brings two claims for excessive force and one each for supervisory liability and negligent retention, training, and supervision.

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The complaint follows a recent critical audit of DPSCS, which said the department did not conduct adequate oversight of the for-profit companies responsible for providing health care to incarcerated people, and that those companies maintained inadequate staffing levels and often failed to provide required services. It was the latest in a long history of such reviews of DPSCS, dating to at least 2007, by the General Assembly’s Office of Legislative Audits.

DPSCS declined to comment.

One morning last December, according to the complaint, Addison and his cellmate were searched in their cell. Addison was twice ordered to “drop (his underwear), squat and cough.”

“The (correctional officers) then began to escort Mr. Addison — dressed only in his underwear — out of his cell,” the complaint states. “Mr. Addison planted his foot and asked to be permitted to put his sweatpants back on because he felt uncomfortable and unsafe walking down to disciplinary segregation in only his underwear.”

“The (officers) told Mr. Addison, ‘We don’t give a f— about that,’ ” the complaint continues. “Mr. Addison responded that they had to ‘at least put some clothes back on for me.’ ”

Then, they “slammed Mr. Addison’s body to the ground and began pulling his hair, punching him, kicking him in his head, and stomping his face with their boots. Mr. Addison screamed at the top of his lungs during the attack.”

They dragged him until another officer, who told them they couldn’t do that, brought a wheelchair. He was hospitalized overnight.

“After that I just remember uncontrollably crying,” Addison, who is now at Eastern Correctional Institution, in Somerset County, wrote by hand in a request for an administrative remedy. “I’m not going to lie this experience broke me down I haven’t even been sleeping.”

Days later, he filed an administrative grievance.

“DPSCS dismissed (the grievance) because Mr. Addison asked for therapy as part of his relief, and DPSCS said that he could not request that form of relief as part of the (grievance) process,” the complaint states.

His next grievance was rejected on procedural grounds, and his appeals went unanswered.

After he was transferred to MCI-J, DPSCS brought administrative charges against him, including assault or battery on staff, participation in a disruptive act, demonstrating disrespect and disobeying orders. He was found guilty of all but two charges, but the rest were overturned on appeal, the complaint states.

Then, last month, Addison was criminally charged in Anne Arundel County District Court on charges similar to those that had been overturned.

In 2020, at 19, Addison was in the custody of the Prince George’s County police for an alleged armed robbery. He reportedly slipped out of handcuffs and escaped custody in a stolen car, but later turned himself in. In 2021, he was sentenced to 4o years, with all but eight years suspended, and with credit for the time he had already served, for two counts of armed robbery.

Brendan Callahan, his lawyer in the armed robbery case, confirmed his sentence and the charges, and said he was not representing Addison in the case brought last month.

While much of the complaint details alleged mistreatment of Addison at the second prison, no officers or other staff from MCI-J are named as defendants.

The complaint alleges that the correctional officers “had previously been investigated by DPSCS internal affairs for their involvement in prior unauthorized and/or illegal acts.”

The officers “believed they could perpetrate the subject conspiracy and attack without consequence because they knew that the JCI leadership had historically looked the other way.”