About 40 people protested outside the South Bay House of Correction on Monday afternoon to call for the jail’s closure—reviving a years-old demand by activists that has regained steam in the wake of the December death of Springfield native Shacoby Kenny while in custody.
“For too long, the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department has allowed our people to be brutalized, murdered, neglected—and we say no more today!” said Jasmin Borges, director of organizing for the Massachusetts Bail Fund, a non-profit organization that pays cash bail for those who cannot otherwise afford it.
According to organizers with Mass Bail Fund, none of the corrections officers involved in Kenny’s death have been suspended; they are still working inside the facility. Borges said the group is calling for their removal.
“It’s too much, we’re fed up! We’re over the top now!” protester Suezanne ‘Tamu’ Bruce told the small crowd with a megaphone. “This is about the power to the people. The people have power. And don’t you forget about it!”
According to witness accounts obtained by BINJ before the protest, Kenny died in December as the result of a brutal beating by officers. They say what started as an initial altercation between Kenny and a single officer turned into a chase that other officers joined, eventually escalating into a violent beating.
“All of them [the officers] were just holding a limb of Shacoby, just hitting him, kicking him, punching him, kneeing in his head, kneeing in his back,” said a witness who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to safety concerns.
Kenny was transported to a hospital, where he was declared dead the following day, according to previous media reports citing officials.
News outlets including the Boston Globe and GBH News have previously published witness accounts with similarly violent descriptions of Kenny’s death.
During Monday’s protest, a man approached the group and said that he, too, had witnessed Kenny’s death while previously incarcerated.
“All the cops were on top of him,” the man added, recounting what happened to Kenny after the initial chase. “Couldn’t see nothing. When the cops got up—unresponsive.”
The self-described witness at the protest emphasized that Kenny struggled with mental health challenges—something that was also noted in his online obituary alongside the family’s happier memories of their loved one, whom they described as “intelligent, expressive, and hopeful.”
The death is being investigated by the Boston Police Department, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, and the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department, as previously reported. The sheriff’s department did not respond to a request for comment.
Borges told BINJ the group wants an independent investigation conducted by the state Attorney General’s Office due to concerns about conflicts of interest with the entities that are investigating.
In her remarks to the crowd, Borges also mentioned by name those who are known to have died in recent years while in custody of the Suffolk County Sheriff: Carl Taylor, Ayesha Johnson, Carl “Chuck” Rabouin, Edward “Jay” Isberg Jr., Charail Premdas, and Rashonn Wilson.
She added that some of these individuals had been held on low bail, struggled with mental health issues, or had been civilly committed rather than arrested for a crime.
In between speeches from organizers, the group engaged in chants such as “Care, not cages!” and “Shut down South Bay killing grounds!” During a brief moment when a Boston police cruiser pulled up in front of the jail, protesters shouted “Shame!” at the two officers as they got out of the vehicle and entered the building.
A few men inside the jail could be seen and heard banging on their cell windows a few floors above throughout the hour-long protest.
The group’s calls for the shut down of both South Bay House of Correction and Nashua Street Jail have historic precedent, attorney Katy Naples-Mitchell told the crowd. She pointed to the closure of the Charles Street jail, which was shuttered in 1990 and later turned into the luxury Liberty Hotel.
“That jail was shut down 15 years after a federal judge found it had unconstitutional conditions of confinement, including overcrowding, inadequate medical care, unlivable conditions, and more than anything—the fact that men in its custody were being subject to punishment inconsistent with the presumption of innocence,” Naples-Mitchell said.
Naples-Mitchell, who is representing men who witnessed Kenny’s death on a pro bono basis, also noted that neither Boston Mayor Michelle Wu nor Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has publicly mentioned Kenny’s death, despite both politicians’ comments about ICE agents killing two people in Minneapolis.
