Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater announced on Monday that an array of misdemeanor charges had been issued to three former Oklahoma County Jail employees: 21-year-old Gregory Cornell Butler Jr., 21-year-old Christian Charles Miles and 50-year-old Christopher Raymond Hendershott, The Oklahoman reported.
An investigation revealed that, during November and December of 2019, at least four inmates were secured to a wall and handcuffed behind their back by Butler and Miles, while being forced to listen to “Baby Shark” on loop at a loud volume. Some were held in the room for as long as two hours.
Butler and Miles have been charged for their alleged mistreatment of prisoners, and Hendershott, their supervisor, allegedly knew about their actions on November 23 but "took no immediate action to either aid the inmate victim or discipline the Officers,” investigators alleged. "This appeared to have led to the Officers continuing to mistreat inmates."
The charges refer to Miles and Butler’s actions as “inhuman” discipline, The Oklahoman noted.
"It was unfortunate that I could not find a felony statute to fit this fact scenario," Prater said. "I would have preferred filing a felony on this behavior."
Miles confirmed to an investigator that he and Butler "systematically worked together and used the ... attorney booth as a means to discipline inmates and teach them a lesson because they felt that disciplinary action within the Detention Center was not working in correcting the behavior of the inmates,” according to an affidavit.
Oklahoma County Sheriff P.D. Taylor told The Oklahoman that Miles and Butler have both resigned, and Hendershott retired.
“We don’t tolerate it,” Taylor said of the mistreatment. “We always did an excellent job policing ourselves.”
The lyrics to “Baby Shark” include the incessant repetition of “doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.” It currently has 6.7 billion views on YouTube.
Sputnik reported in July 2019 that officials in West Palm Beach, Florida, used “Baby Shark” to push homeless individuals away from the city’s Lake Pavilion.
"Music is also played overnight on a loop by our pavilion to discourage congregating and, if appropriate, to encourage people to seek safer, more appropriate shelter through the many resources that are available,” read a statement provided by a West Palm Beach spokesperson.
CBS News likened the city’s tactics to those used by American interrogators to “torment prisoners in the war on terror in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.”