16 Souza prisoners charged in attack on guards

WORCESTER COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY Joseph Early Jr. on Thursday charged 16 prisoners at the state’s maximum-security prison in connection with a violent January 10 attack on four correctional officers. 

According to video of the incident at the Souza Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, the attack began with one prisoner punching a guard and knocking him to the ground. Other prisoners then joined in, punching and kicking the guard, who suffered head injuries. Three other guards were also injured in the melee. All four guards were hospitalized. Two guards suffered injuries requiring surgeries; only one of the four guards has been able to return to work. 

All 16 inmates were charged on a joint venture theory with each prisoner facing two counts of assault and battery causing serious bodily injury and four counts of assault and battery on a corrections officer. Ten of the inmates face additional charges, including aggravated kidnapping, apparently for trying to drag a guard into a cell; aggravated assault and battery; and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, either a shod foot or a cane. 

Six inmates – Tabari Muhammed, Frank Webb, Marcus Muniz, Steven Gonzalez, Lennon Dossantos, and Israel Perez – faced only the basic assault and battery charges. 

Additional assault and battery charges were filed against Jovani Molinari, Giovanni Buchanan, Yamil Narvaez Arroyo, Joshua Reyes, Pedros Solis, and Jason Velez Acosta. All of them were accused of using a shod foot as their weapon. 

The 16 inmates range in age from 23 to 33. Most of them were in prison on serious charges. Buchanan, for example, has a long criminal record, including possession of firearms and drugs, as well as armed robbery. He was sentenced to six to seven years in January for attacking a corrections officers in January 2019 at the Nashua Street Jail. 

Souza Superintendent Stephen Kenneway said in a court hearing last week that 23 prisoners were involved with the attack. It was not immediately clear why only 16 prisoners were charged in the indictment. 

Paul Jarvey, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said it took more than 40 days to file charges because so many people were involved.  “There were four victims and many suspects, and investigators had to make sure the correct offenses were being charged for each defendant,” he said.  

The investigation of the incident was conducted by the State Police and the Department of Correction, which instituted an almost three-week lockdown of the prison after the attack.  

The union representing prison corrections officers has been pointing to the state’s criminal justice reform bill, enacted in 2018, as the cause of violence at the state’s maximum-security prison. The corrections officers’ union claims that attacks on staff are up 150 percent in the past year at the Shirley prison, which housed over 700 prisoners in January.  

“This is a direct result from the recently enacted Criminal Justice Reform Act legislation, which was promulgated by inmate rights groups and activists,” wrote Guy Glodis in a January press release, spokesman for the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union.