"I Almost Died": Slashed Rikers Guard Rails Against Use-of-Force Re­stric­tions

A guard who was attacked at Rikers Island by two inmates Thursday night is now speaking out against new use-of-force guidelines at the jail. NY1's Courtney Gross filed the following report.

Correction officer Raymond Calderon showed up to City Hall on Monday with his stitches still fresh.

Four days earlier, Calderon was attacked while on the job. Two inmates on Rikers Island are accused of slashing his face.

Now, alongside the head of the correction officers' union and hordes of his colleagues, he was blasting the de Blasio administration.

"We're lucky I only got 22 stitches in my face, OK?" Calderon said. "This could have easily been a funeral arrangement today. I could have easily been killed. I almost died."

"In 2017, there will be a mayoral election in this city and you better shape up or ship out," said Norman Seabrook, president of the Correction Officers' Benefit Association.

It was easily this union leader's harshest words yet for Mayor Bill de Blasio, calling on his correction commissioner to resign.

They are slamming a new use-of-force policy that would restrict what correction officers could or couldn't do while on the job.

The correction officers' union has filed a restraining order to prevent the policy from taking effect, which it is slated to do next week. They say it will prevent officers from doing their jobs effectively.

"We all go to work to come home the same way we came in," Calderon said.

To drive home the point, officers paraded into City Hall with graphic posters of slashings and beatings, injuries that occurred on Rikers Island.

"At the end of the day, I am tired of hearing the (expletive). It's time to get down to business," Seabrook said. "If we are not going to be respected, we are going to take our respect."

This new policy would strictly prohibit what's called high-impact force. What that means is, correction officers would not be allowed to hit an inmate in the head, neck, spinal column, groin or kidneys.

Hours before the officers descended on city hall, the mayor defended reforms he was making on Rikers Island.

"I think we are on the right track to reduce the use of force properly and to get away from things like punitive segregation," de Blasio said.

They clearly disagree.

"Somebody has got to lose their job for this," Calderon said.