Allegheny County Jail suspends corrections officer over racist video

An Allegheny County Jail corrections officer has been suspended following the discovery of a video purportedly showing him making a racist comment about Black people while holding a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.

Brian Davis, who has worked at the jail since March 2020, was suspended Monday after officials learned about the video.

In a statement, they said they are investigating.

“The ACJ administration, from Warden (Trevor) Wingard down, expects professionalism from all jail employees,” the jail said in the statement. “The jail does not tolerate racist or abusive language or behavior.”

The video, making the rounds on social media, features a man wearing a baseball hat and a New England Patriots hoodie and holding up the bat. The video was not recorded at the jail.

Jail officials told TribLive the man in the video appears to be Davis.

“You know what this is?” the man asks two women who can’t be seen in the video. “I don’t give a (expletive). (Racial epithet) beater.”

Davis was most recently assigned to the intake unit at the jail.

“That means he’s the first face they see,” said Tanisha Long, a community organizer with the Abolitionist Law Center, a Pittsburgh group that advocates for incarcerated people. “For him to be their first point of contact, that’s terrifying.

“You can just imagine how they’re being treated.”

Long called the man “violently racist.”

“He has violent ideations of what he wants to do to Black people,” she said. “If he’s bold enough to say that in a video, he’s probably acting worse to the people in jail.”

Brian Englert, president of the jail’s corrections officer union, cited the jail’s code of ethics in responding to questions.

“This is a troubling, straightforward charge that violates the county policy we must all abide by,” Englert said.

To work at the jail, employees are required to sign off on that code, which prohibits a variety of behaviors. Several are listed as zero-tolerance violations, making them fireable offenses, Englert said.

“Racism is a terminable offense,” Englert said.

Still, he continued, “we hold an obligation of fair representation to members despite the severity of charges until the HR investigation wraps up.”

Englert noted that 42% of the officers who work at the jail are Black.

Before starting at the jail, Davis worked for just over two years in the Allegheny County Treasurer’s Office. His job title there was clerk/typist.