4 Officers Injured In 2 Recent Attacks At Hudson Valley Prisons

STORMVILLE, NY — Four corrections officers were injured in two separate incidents recently at Fishkill and Green Haven Correctional Facilities, according to the PBA. The officers had to be sent to the hospital for treatment. Michael Mazzella, Mid-Hudson Region vice president of New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, Inc., said these latest two attacks in the Hudson Valley shows that violence on staff has not declined.

“Our members continue to come to work each day and face some of the most adverse and dangerous conditions and do so without any recognition,” he said.

Around 4:35 a.m. Sunday, April 9, a female officer was making routine rounds in a cell block at Green Haven.

PBA officials said an inmate named Dennis Mosley was locked in his cell and called for the officer to come closer. He said he had something to tell her that he didn’t want other inmates to hear. As the officer got close to the cell, Mosley reached through the bars and grabbed her right arm.

He pulled her into the cell bars, where she struck her head and arm on the bars.

The officer managed to break free from his grasp and fell backward striking her head and arm on a table behind her.

Another officer witnessed the assault and called for a response.

When additional officers arrived at Mosley’s cell, they found he had a broken broom handle in one hand and a weighted cloth weapon in the other.

In order to open the cell door, officers had to cut shoestrings the inmate had tied tot he door to prevent it from opening.

Once they got inside the cell, officers restrained Mosely and he was taken from his cell and placed in a special housing unit.

The injured officer sustained abrasions and bruising to her face, arm and back of her head. She was released from the hospital after treatment and has not returned to duty.

Mosley, 32, is serving a 22-year to life sentence having been convicted for second-degree murder in Oneida County in 2015. He was convicted of killing a 47-year-old man in Utica in 2013.

The second assault occurred around 1:35 p.m. Friday, April 14 at Fishkill Correctional Facility, the PBA said. Two officers were making routine rounds in a housing unit.

Both officers entered the inmate bathroom and smelled smoke coming from a bathroom stall.

The officers the inmate — Luiggi Bermeotoral — out of the stall and to face the wall so the officers could frisk him for the contraband.

Intially, the inmate faced the wall, but he reached into his left pocket and spun around striking one of the officers in face with a closed fist.

Bermeotoral grabbed the officer’s shirt and continued to throw punches at the officer, striking him several more times in the face.

The second officer grabbed the inmate around the waist and brought him to the floor while the inmate continued to fight.

Bermeotoral punched the second officer several times in the neck and below the right eye.

Three more officers came to the scene, and one female officer tried to grab Bermeotoral’s legs, but before she could, she was kicked in the neck and shoulder.

Two of the officers were able to restrain Bermeotoral and he was removed from the bathroom.

Three injured officers were taken to Vassar Brothers Medical Center for treatment. One was treated for facial contusions and bruising and swelling to his right hand and wrist. A second officer had to be treated for facial swelling, along with pain in his wrist, shoulder and neck. The third officer, who was kicked, was treated for neck and shoulder pain.

All three were released from the hospital, and two have not yet returned to duty.

Two other officers were treated at the facility for minor injuries and they remain on duty.

Bermeotoral, 22, was convicted in Westchester County in 2015 for two counts of second-degree assault and second-degree attempted robbery. He is serving a seven-year sentence.

The inmate was transferred to Green Haven and placed in a special housing unit.

“We were very fortunate that the four officers, who needed treatment at outside hospitals, did not get more seriously injured,” Mazzella said.

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