Three former detention officers in Oklahoma have been charged after an investigation found annoying music was used to punish jail inmates.
Gregory Cornell Butler, 21, Christian Charles Miles, 21, and their supervisor Christopher Raymond Hendershott, 50, were charged on Monday with misdemeanor counts of cruelty to a prisoner and conspiracy. Authorities said they subjected at least four inmates at the Oklahoma County jail to “inhumane” treatment in November and December by making them stand handcuffed to the wall for hours while listening to the children’s song “Baby Shark” on repeat.
District Attorney David Prater urged the state to consider reforming the laws around cruelty to prisoners after he was unable to find felony charges for the former detention officers.
“It was unfortunate that I could not find a felony statute to fit this fact scenario,” Prater said. “I would have preferred filing a felony on this behavior.”
Butler and Miles are accused of carrying out the cruel punishments, while Hendershott allegedly knew what was happening and did nothing to stop it. Sheriff P.D. Taylor said Butler and Miles resigned during an internal investigation and that Hendershott, a lieutenant, retired.
“We don’t tolerate it,” Taylor said. “We always did an excellent job policing ourselves.”
Miles conceded that he and Butler felt they needed to “teach” prisoners “a lesson” on their own because the jail’s policies on punishment were not strict enough, an investigator wrote in an affidavit. Butler told investigators that the song was a joke between the two officers.
Butler and Miles placed “undue emotional stress on the inmates who were most likely already suffering from physical stressors,” the investigator wrote.
