2 former Milwaukee County Jail correctional officers charged with abusing inmates 

Two former Milwaukee County Jail correctional officers have been charged with abusing inmates and misconduct in public office for an incident that occurred last year.  

The former jail employees, 30-year-old Rafael Gomez III and 25-year-old Marques Reeder, were charged Thursday in Milwaukee County. A criminal complaint alleges the officers punched an inmate, sprayed pepper spray in his face, hit the pepper spray canister against his face, pulled his dreadlocks and rubbed the pepper spray into his eyes. Prosecutors say that all occurred while the inmate, who was not named in the complaint, was handcuffed. 

The complaint said Reeder also sprayed pepper spray and performed a “vertical wall stun” against another inmate who was on suicide watch in the facility.

Both incidents, which occurred Sept. 24, were captured on surveillance video. The inmates also made verbal complaints against the officers.

Gomez, a former sergeant at the jail, also made a false statement in the report about the incident, according to the criminal complaint.

A statement from the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office said the officers have since been “separated from their employment with MCSO.” 

“MCSO ( Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office) will continue to cooperate with the District Attorney’s Office as these cases make their way through the criminal justice system,” the statement said. 

Gomez was charged with abuse of a resident of a penal facility, and two counts of misconduct in public office.

Reeder was charged with two counts of abuse of a resident of a penal facility and two counts of misconduct in public office.

What the complaint says

The complaint states an inmate, identified by the initials SEH, was “yelling threats and obscenities to the officers,” on the morning of Sept. 24. He was attached to a restraint bench in the unit. 

After he ate breakfast, he said he swallowed a piece of metal and was having chest pains. Nurses and officers, including Reeder and Gomez, came to the unit to check on the inmate. According to the complaint, the inmate said he didn’t want Reeder to touch him because Reeder said he would hurt him the day before. A lieutenant at the jail said Reeder “made threats to Inmate SEH” the night before the incident, according to the complaint.  

The complaint states Gomez and Reeder “directed” the inmate to the ground as they were trying to move him to the medical clinic. It said the inmate was “actively resisting” when officers were trying to move him.

“Sgt. Gomez then delivered two strong side hand strikes to Inmate SEH’s abdomen/chest,” the complaint said.

Gomez used pepper spray on the inmate, according to the complaint. After he used pepper spray the second time, the complaint said Gomez raised the canister and “delivered a downward strike” to the inmate’s face. 

“The impacts of the OC canister (pepper spray canister) were audible on Officer Reeder’s body camera recording,” the complaint said. 

The complaint said Reeder struck the inmate on the left side of his face. In an interview with a detective, the inmate said Reeder also rubbed the pepper spray “into his eyeball” during the incident.

The complaint said the officers grabbed and pulled the inmate’s hair while they were securing him to the restraint bench. The inmate did “not appear resistive while he is being secured to the bench,” the complaint said. 

The complaint said the inmate was in handcuffs during the entire incident.

“When Inmate SEH was on the ground, he did not make any attempts to bite or spit at officers and his level of resistance was kicking his legs and moving his head and torso,” the complaint said. “Officer Reeder and Sgt. Gomez continued to use force after Inmate SEH stopped his resistive behavior.”

The complaint said Gomez wrote in his incident report that he did not hit the inmate with the pepper spray cannister but that it hit the inmate’s head due to, “exaggerated body movements and high level of resistance.”

“This is a false materially false statement in a report during Gomez’s employment in and in his capacity as a public employee,” the complaint said.

Shortly after that incident, the complaint said Reeder sprayed pepper spray and performed a “vertical wall stun” against another inmate who was on suicide watch, identified in the complaint by the initials TTS.

“Officer Reeder performed a vertical wall stun against inmate TTS despite TTS not being resistive when the wall stun was performed,” the complaint said. 

Officer Reeder said he deployed the pepper spray, “due to the fear out of my safety to be suddenly assaulted by this inmate,” the complaint states.

“However, Officer Reeder acknowledged that if he had walked backwards Inmate TTS would not have been able to assault him,” the complaint said.

Both Reeder and Gomez will appear in court later this month, according to online court records. Those records do not yet include information on the men’s legal representation. 

The charges come as the Milwaukee County Jail was the focus of an audit following the death of six inmates over 14 months at the downtown Milwaukee facility.

An initial report was completed by auditors in October. It found several issues, including “dangerous suicide watch practices and a mental health challenge to critical staffing shortages and occupant overcrowding.”