‘Let’s give him the George Floyd Challenge!’: Inmate says officers attacked him in midnight prison hallway beating

Mid-State Correctional Facility, Marcy, NY (WROC).

An inmate is suing a corrections officer and a trainee who he alleges beat him in what he says they called a “George Floyd challenge” in a New York prison.

James Barton filed his lawsuit in a federal court for the beating he said happened in 2023 at the Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, in upstate New York. The lawsuit, which seeks $10 million in damages, names Officer Rohail Khan and Officer Trainee Michael Williams as defendants.

Barton alleges he was woken up in his cell and brought into a hallway where he was attacked by Williams, Khan and three unnamed officers without provocation or justification in a hallway of the prison on April 13, 2023, at 12:30 a.m. In the hallway, Williams told Barton to put his hands on the wall, hold his identification card against the wall, and remain in that position, court documents said.

“Do you think you was going to get away with raping a white woman?” one of the officers allegedly told him, according to the documents. “Since you want to play games I got one for you. Hold your I.D. with your right pinky against the wall and if the I.D. falls, then you’re dead.”

The five officers then punched him in his head, face, eyes, chest, stomach, legs, butt and groin for 10 minutes, the lawsuit said. When Barton fell to the floor, the officers kicked and stomped him, according to the documents.

“Let’s give him the George Floyd Challenge!” court documents noted an officer said, an apparent reference to George Floyd, a Black man who was killed in Minnesota on May 25, 2020, by Derek Chauvin, a white Minnesota police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as Floyd lay facedown in handcuffs.

Barton was put in a chokehold as another officer punched him, according to court documents.

Afterward, the officers agreed to lie about the assault, court documents said. The officers denied any knowledge of the attack when questioned by internal investigators, the documents said.

Khan and Williams have already pleaded guilty to criminal charges.

“They’ve admitted liability,” said Andrew Plasse, Barton’s lawyer, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle reported.

The newspaper reported that attorneys for the officers declined to comment or did not respond to questions.

Officials with the state’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) said the criminal charges came after an internal investigation into the beating.

“Discipline has been initiated with some staff terminated already and two people have been convicted of federal crimes so far,” DOCCS officials said in an email to the newspaper.

Williams and Khan are set to be sentenced in their criminal cases in February.

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