PANAMA CITY — The trial of a prison guard accused of helping in a brutal, group attack on an inmate is scheduled to begin Tuesday, according to court records.
Christopher Blake Christmas, 32, was one of five Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) officers indicted on charges of violating 31-year-old Jeremiah Tatum’s rights to not suffer cruel or unusual punishment at the Northwest Florida Reception Center (NWFRC) in Washington County. Prosecutors said the attack was an act of jailhouse retaliation. Christmas has denied hearing an order to jump Tatum after his commanding officer claimed Tatum had spit on him.
Jury selection begins Tuesday morning at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida in Panama City.
Every other officer involved has pleaded guilty to their role in the attack. When it came Christmas’ time to change his plea at a June hearing, he changed his mind in court and decided to proceed to trial. He said he had only considered pleading guilty because he sought a lighter sentence.
“At no time did I hear (the captain) say he would yell [that] the inmate spit on him and that we were to jump on him, although I don’t doubt he said it, because he was that type of person,” Christmas told the court.
Dates for the other officers to be sentenced were pushed back in light of Christmas’ decision, and the length of their sentences could depend partly on their testimony in the trial.
James Fletcher Perkins, William Francis Finch, Robert Lewis Miller and Dalton Edward Riley have admitted to accepting orders from former Capt. James Kirkland prior to slamming the inmate face-first to the ground and then falsifying reports of the incident. Kirkland has since died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The arrests of the officers stemmed from an Aug. 5, 2014, incident, during which Tatum was left severely injured. Prosecutors claim Kirkland sought retaliation from a previous incident, where Tatum deflected pepper spray onto him. Kirkland then organized an incident in which Tatum was again sprayed, and Kirkland called in a five-man extradition team to escort Tatum to a decontamination shower, prosecutors allege. As the men equipped themselves for the extradition, Kirkland allegedly told the officers he would state that Tatum spit on him leading up to the beating “to teach him a lesson,” according to court records.
Video from the prison showed Finch and Riley slamming Tatum face-first into the concrete floor while Tatum’s hands and ankles were restrained. The three other officers then jumped on Tatum and pinned him to the ground, according to arrest records.
Christmas said he didn’t hear the orders to attack Tatum and that he helped restrain his legs because “that’s my job,” he said.