An Arkansas police officer has been fired after repeatedly punching an inmate in the back of his patrol car.
Joseph Harris was fired from the Jonesboro police force on Friday after footage surfaced showing him beating Billy Lee Coram.
Coram had escaped from police custody at the hospital, where he was receiving treatment for allegedly ingesting fentanyl.
He was begging to be taken back to the medical centre and began deliberately trying to choke himself with his seat belt when Harris lunged at him.
The images show Coram dressed in a hospital gown and socks with his hands tied behind his back in the back of the police car.
An Arkansas police officer has been fired after savagely beating inmate Billy Lee Coram in the back of his patrol car.
He begins pleading with police to take him to the hospital, claiming he ingested a foil-wrapped bag of fentanyl.
“For my daughter’s life, the only thing I care about in this fucking world is having fentanyl inside me,” he screams.
However, Harris refuses to acknowledge their demands even as Coram continues to protest.
The inmate begins to writhe on his back and gets into a position where he begins to suffocate himself with the seat belt.
Finally, Harris stops, throws open the door and delivers several brutal blows to the side of Coram’s head.
He elbows him and calls him a “fucking idiot” as he continues to assault him.
Only after hitting him several times does Harris unwind the seat belt from around Coram’s neck.
Coram had escaped from police custody at the hospital, where he was receiving treatment for allegedly ingesting fentanyl.
Officer Joseph Harris has been suspended from his position with the Jonesboro police after footage surfaced showing the beating.
As he lies limp in the backseat, another officer appears on the other side of the car and Harris slams the door on Coram’s head.
As the other officer checks to see if he’s okay, Harris reappears and begins using his baton to aggressively rub Coram’s sternum in an attempt to wake him up.
Finally, Coram begins to squirm in discomfort and Harris slams the door shut on his head again.
Miraculously he escaped unharmed and was returned to the county jail.
A complaint was later filed with Jonesboro Police Chief Rick Elliott, who met with Harris and fired him immediately after viewing the footage.
“The seriousness of the complaint required swift action,” the force said in a statement.
‘Following an internal review of the incident, it was determined that the officer involved, Joseph Harris, should be terminated effective immediately.’
The force said it released the images in the interests of “transparency”.
Harris was filmed punching and elbowing Coram as he lay helpless in the back seat.
“I’m not proud of the fact that the officer did what he did, but I’m not going to hide it either,” Elliott said at a town hall meeting. NBC information.
“He’s not doing well today and he’ll be doing well next week. There are some cases of internal affairs that come up and aren’t as clear on the video. Sometimes it can take several days, but in this case it didn’t take anything.”
“It was enough for me to know that I didn’t need to work as a law enforcement officer. I’ll gather the facts after the fact.”
Harris was previously suspended for excessive use of force in 2022 and is the subject of a lawsuit filed in June in connection with a man who died at the Craighead County Jail.
Coram is being held at the same prison on an escape charge and is awaiting extradition to Mississippi.
