ABC15 has obtained video showing an inmate attacking a detention officer inside Lower Buckeye Jail, prompting a quick response from other officers to save her life.
The video from the early morning hours of March 12th, 2025, shows a detention officer conducting a security walk when she is choked by an inmate who reportedly threatened to kill her during the assault.
According to court records, the inmate had stepped out of his cell when the door was unlocked for his cellmate to go to court. The detention officer told the inmate to return to his cell. When he refused, a struggle began and he choked the detention officer for approximately 15 seconds until other officers could arrive.
"It's a long 15 seconds for her," Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan said while watching the video with ABC15.
Those other officers rushed to help, eventually subduing the inmate and getting him into handcuffs as the attacked officer gasped for air.
"Detention officers have a very difficult job, probably the most difficult job in law enforcement because things like this can happen very quickly," Sheridan said. “It’s very scary. I’ve been in these situations myself and it is a very difficult job.”
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The Sheriff told ABC15 that in an ideal world, detention officers wouldn’t have to do security walks alone.
"This is where the staffing comes in because if we're ideal staff maybe we have two people making the walks, now we have one," Sheridan said.
Last fall, ABC15 reported on a staffing shortage of 800 detention officers under the previous administration.
"We started a new recruitment class on Monday with 70 detention officer cadets and that is I think the biggest class I can ever remember in my career here," Sheridan said.
Sheriff Sheridan reports MCSO is still 27 percent short staffed, but they have hired 287 people since the start of the year, with 50 more detention officers expected in the next recruitment class.
"There's so many of them in our training center, we've run out of classroom space,” the sheriff added. “That's a great problem to have."
The hope is to cut down on overworked officers and deputies and get control of the budget.
"When you have to pay somebody time and a half. That's not a very efficient use of the taxpayer's money," Sheridan said.
The inmate in this case was indicted for aggravated assault on a corrections employee, with a trial date currently set for late August.
The detention officer was hurt but did survive.
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