The Boston City Council held a hearing last week on in-custody deaths at South Bay House of Correction, with a focus on the case of Shacoby Kenny.
Kenny was a pretrial detainee held on $2,500 bail who was killed by correction officers last December. Witnesses have described officers as brutally beating Kenny; his death was officially ruled a homicide in July, but that ruling did not determine criminal culpability.
The implicated guards have not been placed on leave while the state Attorney General’s Office investigates the matter. Instead, the sheriff’s department has long claimed that “all eleven of the officers involved in the use of force response remain on non-inmate/detainee contact positions.” (That claim of no-contact is disputed by an investigation by advocates.)
Kenny’s mother, Druesilla Brown, gave an emotional testimony at the hearing, which was sponsored by Councilors Miniard Culpepper, Julia Mejia, and Brian Worrell.
“The sheriff [of] South Bay jail, and the guards—they’re still there. And nobody’s outraged,” Brown said.
Councilor Miniard Culpepper described his disappointment with the fact that the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department, which manages South Bay HOC, did not attend the hearing. BINJ requested comment from the sheriff’s office about its lack of attendance and did not hear back.
Other Boston residents also testified, including activists or family members of incarcerated people who read testimony on their behalf. The stories relayed to the council recounted experiences of violence, sexual assault, and humiliation experienced by people in jails and prisons at the hands of correction officers.
