 Police dog beaten
Central Falls, RI (US)Date: Oct 22, 2004
County: Providence
Local Map: available
Disposition: Alleged
Alleged: Milton Gordon
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Though he is being held at the Wyatt Detention Facility, held on immigration charges, Milton Gordon managed to run afoul of the state. Central Falls detectives on Tuesday filed paperwork to charge Gordon with cruelty to animals after he started a fight with a police dog sent in to remove him from his cell on Friday.
Officers at the Wyatt Detention Facility, 950 High St., called police after Gordon, protesting a facility lockdown, allegedly barricaded his cell door with a mattress, taking his cellmate hostage in the process.
Wyatt called Central Falls Police, who in turn called the Pawtucket Police for help. Pawtucket sent Officer David Griffin and his partner,Chicco, a German shepherd.
Gordon, police allege, allowed his cellmate out of the cell but refused to come out himself. He was using a metal stool as a weapon, one that he broke from the plate that held the stool welded to the cell floor.
Griffin released Chicco and the dog ran into the cell, chomping down onto the mattress stuffing that Gordon had wrapped around his arm. Gordon hit the dog over the head with the stool, causing the dog to release, circle and chomp down on Gordon�s arm again, police say.
When the dog was hit again on the head and once on the shoulders, Griffin called his dog back out of the cell. The dog had bruises and welts rising on his head, but was otherwise unharmed.
Wyatt staff then did a forcible cell extraction. In that procedure, corrections officers in full body armor, carrying shields, rush the cell, and pin the occupants against the wall until they are secured in shackles on their ankles and wrists.
Gordon�s refusal to leave his cell came about 12 hours after Wyatt staff began a lockdown at the facility.
In a lockdown, detainees are kept in their cells for almost the entire day, privileges are revoked, telephone calls are not allowed, and visitors are turned away.
"We locked down the facility on Thursday because some of the detainees were becoming unruly," said Terrence Higgins, the public information officer at the facility.
"Everyone is safe here. We did it on a proactive basis.
"We got ahead of the problem. We�ve gotten information and we�ve isolated the ringleaders. We are slowly lifting the (lockdown) protocol now."
The new charge against Gordon is a misdemeanor. He faces up to a year in prison as a result.
As an immigration detainee, one punishment he could be facing is deportation.
If Gordon is convicted of cruelty to a police animal, he would be required to serve out his sentence in jail before his deportation. Neighborhood MapFor more information about the Interactive Animal Cruelty Maps, see the map notes.
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