An Oklahoma corrections officer was found guilty of helping white supremacists attack Black detainees in jail

• A former corrections officer in Oklahoma was found guilty of aiding white supremacist attacks.
• Matthew Ware commanded lower-ranking officers to move two Black detainees to a cell row with white supremacist inmates, the Justice Department said.

A federal jury in Oklahoma found a former corrections officer guilty on Friday of facilitating white supremacist attacks on incarcerated Black people.

Matthew Ware, a former supervisory corrections officer at the Kay County Detention Center, violated "the civil rights of three pretrial detainees," the Justice Department said in a release.

According to the release, Ware "willfully" deprived them of their "right to be free from a corrections officer's deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm" and "use of excessive force," a jury found.

In 2017, Ware commanded lower-ranking officers to move two Black detainees to a cell row that housed "white supremacist" inmates, the release stated. These inmates "posed a danger" to the detainees, D'Angelo Wilson and Marcus Miller.

Later that day, Ware ordered the officers to unlock the doors to both the jail cells of the detainees and of the white supremacist inmates.

"When Ware's orders were followed, the white supremacist inmates attacked Wilson and Miller, resulting in physical injury to both, including a facial laceration to Wilson that required seven stitches to close," the release said.

In 2018, Ware directed a lower-ranking officer to restrain Christopher Davis, another pretrial detainee. Davis was placed in a "stretched-out position," in which his left wrist was "restrained to the far-left side of the bench" and his right "to the far-right side," the release said.

Davis remained in that position for 90 minutes and sustained physical injuries as a result. The restraining act is believed to have been in retaliation for Davis criticizing the way Ware ran the Center.

"This high-ranking corrections official had a duty to ensure that the civil rights of pretrial detainees in his custody were not violated," Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.

She continued: "The defendant abused his power and authority by ordering subordinate corrections officers to violate the constitutional rights of several pretrial detainees. The Civil Rights Division will continue to hold corrections officials accountable when they violate the civil rights of detainees and inmates."

Ware will be sentenced in July. He faces a maximum 10-year prison sentence, a fine of up to $250,000 for each violation, and three years of supervised release.