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Detention officers allegedly forced inmates to listen to ‘Baby Shark’ for hours as punishment

One officer said it was a joke

If you have young kids, you know the song, “Baby Shark.”

Well, some former detention officers in Oklahoma are facing charges for allegedly punishing inmates by making them listen to the children’s song at high volume for hours.

Authorities say it happened at the Oklahoma County Jail late last year.

According to court documents, two detention officers would take the inmates to a visitation room, they were forced to stand the entire time and were handcuffed while the song blared at high levels on a loop.

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And the officers' supervisor knew about it and did nothing.

One of the officers says, “[It] was used as means of discipline because they felt that disciplinary action within the detention center was not working in correcting the behavior of the inmates.”

The other officer says it was a joke between the two in control.

This all took place in late 2019 when the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office was in charge of the jail operations.

Sheriff PD Taylor said as soon as he knew about it, the officers were suspended from any contact with inmates and before the year was up all officers either quit or resigned.

The officers are facing misdemeanor charges of cruelty to prisoners and conspiracy.

The DA says he would have liked to file felonies but that there wasn’t a statute that allowed it.


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