Prison guard from Muncie charged with battering inmate, official misconduct
ANDERSON, Ind. — A Muncie man who was employed as a corrections officer at the Pendleton Correctional Facility has been accused of abusing a prisoner who was overdosing.
Thomas Matthew Opie, 34, is charged in Madison Circuit Court 5 with battery resulting in moderate bodily injury and official misconduct, both Level 6 felonies carrying up to 30 months in prison.
In a report, an investigator with the Indiana Department of Correction wrote that an inmate was left with a "severe upper chest wound" after guards resuscitated him following an overdose in the Pendleton facility on June 25.
Authorities reviewed a video of the efforts to revive the prisoner, and alleged Opie and other personnel repeatedly performed "sternum rubs" — a technique used to test an unconscious person's responsiveness — on the overdose victim. The document appears to suggest the technique was employed after it was no longer necessary, until the inmate's "chest was bleeding."
The document alleged Opie performed "multiple" sternum rubs on the prisoner, held the man down while other guards performed sternum rubs, and slapped the inmate in the face about a dozen times.
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An affidavit also said Opie failed to "document" the prisoner's injuries.
A trial date has not yet been set in the Muncie man's case.
Another staff member, Leslie Ann Gray, 43, of Anderson, faces the same charges as Opie.
The victim in the Pendleton Correctional Facility case is a 36-year-old man from Porter County, sentenced to 30 years in prison in June 2020 after being convicted of neglect of a dependent resulting in death. He had been accused of fatally shaking his girlfriend's two-year-old daughter.
The court documents did not specify what substance the prisoner had allegedly ingested before the overdose.
Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Guard from Muncie charged with battering prisoner, official misconduct
