90.5 WESA: “An Allegheny County Jail corrections officer has been suspended after a video surfaced on social media purportedly showing him making a racist comment about Black people while holding a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.

In it, a white man wearing a baseball cap and a New England Patriots hoodie wields the bat and refers to the weapon using a racial slur.

‘You know what this is?’ the man asks an unseen audience. ‘I don’t give a [expletive]. [expletive] beater.’

The video does not appear to have been filmed at the jail, but a caption identifies the man as corrections officer Brian Davis. Jail spokesperson Jesse Geleynse said ‘the employee in question’ was suspended Monday as authorities investigated….

Jail officials confirmed Davis has worked at the jail since 2020 in various posts, including in the intake department, where newly arrested people first enter the jail. Prior to that, Davis worked as a clerk typist in the county Treasurer’s office from 2018 to 2020, a spokesperson for the office said.

Abolitionist Law Center community organizer Tanisha Long told WESA that the intake department is among the highest-risk departments in the jail. The cells can be more crowded than in a standard jail pod. New arrivals may be experiencing drug or alcohol withdrawal. And those in intake don’t yet have access to the health care team that works with people who are already incarcerated.”

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