Why It’s So Hard to Fire an Abusive Prison Guard
Inmates at Ulster, a medium-security state prison, are required to stay in place and keep their voices low during the count. Fabian, who was serving a one-year sentence for a drug conviction, had been talking to another inmate, but he said in a recent interview that he thought he had been following the rules.
After the count was over, the guard escorted him past a set of double doors out of view of other inmates and the prison’s electronic surveillance cameras. Fabian said the officer, Michael Bukowski, a seven-year veteran, had then ordered him to face the wall and brace himself in the “pat-frisk” position, arms outstretched and legs spread. As he did so, Fabian recalled, he looked down and saw the toe of a boot swinging up between his legs.
He saw a flash of light, felt a piercing pain and collapsed. “He told me to get up, but all I could do was crawl back to my cube,” Fabian, who is now 21, told investigators later. He lay on the floor in his cubicle in the prison’s dormitory, groaning and crying, for almost an hour before hobbling to lunch. In the mess hall, a sergeant sent him to the prison’s medical unit. He was soon loaded into a van and driven 80 miles north to a hospital in Albany. Doctors there performed emergency surgery, removing part of his right testicle.
Questioned by an investigator from the state corrections department’s inspector general’s office a few days after the episode on July 22, 2014, Bukowski said he knew nothing about the injury. He said he had “counseled” Fabian about the importance of keeping quiet during the count. He acknowledged that he had raised his voice, and that when he sent Fabian back to his cubicle, the inmate was “crying a little.” Corrections officials concluded that the guard had used excessive force and was lying. Officer Bukowksi was suspended without pay on July 31, 2014, and the department soon moved to fire him.
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