Opinion ID: 2523730
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Defendant's Behavior in Custody

Text: On August 27, 2002, defendant was involved in an altercation in the Cook County jail. According to a witness, defendant approached fellow inmate Jon-Pierre Blackamore after a recreation period and stabbed him in the neck. The witness, a correction officer, then lost sight of defendant and Blackamore. After the incident, officers found a homemade knife made of sharpened metal, called a shank, in the recreation area. Blackamore was stabbed twice in the chest and once in the neck, causing a collapsed lung, but he recovered. A statement made by defendant regarding the stabbing was excluded by the court. The State also presented the testimony of Alan Mitchell, a correctional officer with the Cook County sheriff's department. Mitchell testified that on October 19, 2003, he was monitoring defendant and two other inmates in the staging area of the Cermak Health Center. Defendant and the others were all handcuffed and wearing leg shackles, but they were not shackled to one another. He explained that the staging area was adjacent to the emergency room, and it is where inmates wait to be seen by the doctors and nurses. Mitchell stated that when the other correctional officer left the staging area to investigate a disturbance in the emergency room, defendant and the other two inmates with him got up and tried to get into the emergency room from the staging area. Mitchell tried to stop them, and the two inmates with defendant started swinging at Mitchell, who fell to the ground. When he got back up, defendant approached him from the rear and struck him twice in the back of the head. Before the three inmates could leave, however, other correctional officers returned and subdued them. Mitchell suffered a sprained ankle. Officer Brent Lewandowski testified that he was stationed in the emergency room when an inmate who was being treated attacked a doctor. After officers had subdued that inmate, Lewandowski heard a commotion coming from the staging area, and he went in to find Mitchell defending blows from two inmates in front of him. Lewandowski testified that he saw defendant standing behind Mitchell and striking him in the head.