The Virginia Department of Corrections in 2018 closed an investigation into an incident in which an investigator believed a prison supervisor choked a restrained inmate, taking no disciplinary action.
But after the Richmond Times-Dispatch recently obtained a video of the incident, the director said he would refer the case to a local prosecutor for review.
Virginia Department of Corrections Director Harold Clarke said through a spokesman that he had concerns about video footage showing what a former prison investigator concluded was a supervisor choking an inmate who was tied down by his arms, legs and chest. But Clarke wouldn’t acknowledge that the video shows the supervisor’s hand on the inmate’s neck.
The Times-Dispatch sent the video footage to the DOC after obtaining it from Brian Mitchell, a former investigator at Keen Mountain Correctional Center in Buchanan County who lives in Tazewell County. Mitchell, who left his job in March, investigated the incident.
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He said a prison supervisor choked an inmate who was in five-point restraints, violating DOC policy. Mitchell said an investigator with the Special Investigations Unit — the department’s internal police force — closed the investigation without any punishment for any of the officers.
Mitchell said he was providing the DOC video footage and records to The Times-Dispatch because the incident was an example of excessive force by a supervisor that the department kept quiet. The cover-up appeared to begin almost instantaneously: An officer assigned to record the entire interaction with the inmate points the camera toward a wall as soon as the supervisor appears to grab the inmate’s neck.
The incident happened on Aug. 21, 2018, after the inmate was removed from his cell in an extraction because he wouldn’t comply with orders to come out. The inmate’s arms, legs and chest were restrained in a medical cell when the unit manager, Dwayne A. Turner, grabbed the inmate’s neck and choked him, Mitchell said.
The inmate — The Times-Dispatch is not publishing his name because the newspaper was unable to reach him — also alleged during the recording that Turner had punched him during the cell extraction.
The DOC video shows the man who wouldn’t come out of his cell being put in restraints. He said he wasn’t getting answers from DOC about where he would be housed. “I just want to know where I’m going and what’s happening,” he said.
Officers cut off his white shirt to remove it. He complained that Turner punched him and lectured Turner, cursing at him and calling him a scumbag. He made a quick movement of his head and Turner responded by placing his right hand on the man’s head and his left hand on his neck while pushing his head down.
“I didn’t try to bite nobody,” the restrained man said.
Turner, who is now the chief of housing and programs at Red Onion State Prison, declined through a DOC spokesman to be interviewed.
Mitchell became an investigator at the prison in 2016 and reported to the warden after starting a DOC career in 1999.
He said the video footage clearly shows Turner’s hand move to the inmate’s neck and choke him. But the DOC officer operating a camera to record the incident immediately pans the camera to the right and films a wall, so the full incident cannot be seen. The camera operator then refocused on the inmate after about 10 seconds.
A special agent in the department’s Special Investigations Unit watched the footage and then interviewed Turner with Mitchell present.
Mitchell said he was stunned to hear the special agent ask a leading question: “It looks on film like he spit on you.”
Turner responded that the inmate had spit on him, Mitchell said.
“I was just shocked,” Mitchell said. None of the officers can be heard accusing the inmate of spitting, and the video doesn’t appear to show him spitting.
The special agent, Jesse Wagner, declined to be interviewed for this story.
Had the inmate spit, the appropriate response would not be choking but rather a spit mask, Mitchell said.
Benjamin Jarvela, a spokesman for the DOC, said earlier this month that agency leadership had some concerns after watching the video, and they turned information over to the Buchanan commonwealth’s attorney for review.
“If the Commonwealth’s Attorney decides that further investigation or legal action is necessary, we will proceed based on that recommendation,” he wrote in an email.
He said the officer turning the camera away at the point of contact “is a problem” that created uncertainty about what happened and violated department procedure. But he said Clarke, the director, could not conclude that the inmate was choked.
“This footage does not make it clear if the staff member’s hands were on his neck or chin and the inmate’s large beard and extensive head and neck tattoos only compound the difficulty in making a determination,” Jarvela wrote. The video, however, does not show extensive neck tattoos.
Jarvela said the inmate also made “repeated aggressive head movements” and never complained about being choked and Turner believed the inmate was trying to bite him.
Mitchell, who in 2018 provided still images of the incident to the warden, disagreed. He said Turner’s hand is clearly on the inmate’s neck and, because Turner was wearing a blue glove, his hand is visible. The inmate’s tattoos don’t obstruct the view in any way, Mitchell said. The video reviewed by The Times-Dispatch matches Mitchell’s description.
In their written documentation of the incident, the officers in the cell made no mention of the inmate trying to spit on or bite Turner and made no mention of any choking.
Mitchell said he heard through his networks that some people who worked at the prison weren’t happy with him, badmouthed him and his investigations, and he feels like he was retaliated against.
“There were people there that never treated me like they did before,” he said.
His team members were given different duties at times besides investigations and, in 2020 and 2021, fell behind on federal Prison Rape Elimination Act investigations because of the added workload, he said. But Mitchell said he didn’t want to be part of what he called a “code of silence” in the state correctional system. He left his job for medical reasons.