4 Guards Charged in Inmate’s Beating at Alabama Prison

Four men who worked as corrections officers in Alabama have been charged by the Justice Department with crimes including civil rights violations and obstruction of justice in the beating of an inmate in 2018, according to a newly-unsealed indictment.

The criminal case was announced less than a week after federal investigators released a highly critical report on the use of excessive force in the state’s troubled prison system, a practice that the report said was routine and violated the constitutional rights of prisoners.

The men charged — former Sgt. Keith Finch, former Officer Jordan Thomas, Officer Kevin Blaylock and Sgt. Orlanda Walker — had been working at the Bibb Correctional Facility in Brent, Ala., when the assault took place in September 2018, prosecutors and prison officials said. The prison is about 35 miles southeast of Tuscaloosa, Ala.

A spokeswoman for the Alabama Department of Corrections said in an email on Thursday that Mr. Finch had been fired and that Mr. Thomas had resigned earlier this year, while Officer Blaylock had been suspended and then placed in a post in which he has no contact with prisoners. Sergeant Walker is on mandatory leave, she said.