A former Philly jail guard has been charged with repeatedly pepper-spraying prisoners
Christopher Knight, a former sergeant at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, is also accused of submitting false reports to cover up his actions.
A former Philadelphia corrections officer was indicted Tuesday and accused of pepper-spraying five prisoners in several different incidents in 2023 — sometimes while the men were handcuffed or restrained by other guards, court documents say.
Christopher Knight is also accused of submitting false reports to cover up his actions. Prosecutors say he did so in an attempt to justify his use of force, which they called “excessive.”
Knight was charged with crimes including deprivation of rights and falsification of records. He did not have an attorney listed in court dockets Tuesday.
The actions he is accused of took place at a time when the city’s jails were in the midst of a significant staffing crisis — one that led to deaths, assaults, and riots behind bars. A federal judge last year ordered the city to take steps to improve staffing levels and conditions in its facilities, and officials in recent months have worked to reduce the jails’ head count as part of that effort.
The indictment gave this account of what happened in Knight’s case:
On Jan. 8, 2023, Knight was working as a sergeant at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility when he pepper-sprayed a prisoner who was lying facedown on the ground with his hands behind his back.
About 15 seconds later, when another guard was putting handcuffs on the prisoner, Knight sprayed the man again, doing so as he was still lying on the ground.
Knight then submitted a report about the episode in which he falsely said the prisoner was not following his orders and omitted the fact that the man had been lying on the ground and was later placed in handcuffs.
Two days later, Knight pepper-sprayed two more prisoners — one of whom was handcuffed and in the custody of another guard. The other man was following orders to return to his cell. (None of the prisoners was named in the indictment, and the document does not specify which charges the men were jailed for.)
Then, in March 2023, Knight pepper-sprayed another two men in one week. One of the prisoners had been writing on a piece of paper before Knight approached and began spraying, while the other was lying facedown on the ground when Knight attacked.
After that last incident, prosecutors said, Knight submitted another false report, inaccurately describing the prisoner as noncompliant “in order to cover up his own use of excessive force.”