When Colenzo Grant, 38, came to the United States in 2014 after surviving a civil war in Sierra Leone, he didn’t think he’d end up working at a prison in Western Maryland. But after he followed a woman to Hagerstown, about 70 miles northwest of the District, he learned the Maryland Correctional Training Center (MCTC) was hiring correctional officers. He had military training, so he applied and started working at the institution in 2021.
He quickly ran into trouble, he said. He was among the first Black officers the institution hired. Many new Black staffers were immigrants. And, Grant said, they were not welcome.
It wasn’t just that Black officers served under exclusively White supervisors, according to Grant. They were denied promotions. They were denied opportunities for overtime. They were told to go back to their country.
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“This is a job for White officers,” Grant said one co-worker told him. “You have to get your Black ass out of here.”
Grant is now part of a federal class-action lawsuit filed against corrections officials by Black officers at MCTC last year. The suit alleges that White officers created a “race-based gang” to block employees of color and others not part of the gang from promotion and to avoid punishment for smuggling contraband.
In a statement, the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, a defendant in the suit, said that it “is aware of the complaints alleged in this suit and is investigating the serious claims.”
“The Department cannot comment further on pending litigation at this time,” the statement said.
In a court motion filed last month, the department said the case should be dismissed because the officers did not try to fix their alleged problems administratively and because their claims should not be considered together, among other concerns.
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“Not only do the plaintiffs’ claims vary among race-, national origin-, and sex-based discrimination, but also their alleged damages vary,” the motion said. “The complaint is devoid of allegations setting forth that the plaintiffs met the required pre-suit administrative procedures.”
MCTC houses medium- and minimum-security inmates, as well as those slated for release, according to its website. The class-action suit — initially filed in Baltimore City Circuit Court but moved to U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland — said that, before 2018, all or nearly all of the center’s correctional officers were Caucasian.
Decades ago, these officers formed a gang called “40 West” to “engage in illegal behavior and to take administrative control,” according to the suit. Members of the gang “occupy high ranking positions,” the suit said, and a former warden and security chief of the facility have been members.
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After a number of people of color and immigrants were hired as correctional officers in 2018, according the suit, the center became “a toxic environment where racial slurs and discrimination against persons of color, especially black officers and African immigrants, occurs not only with impunity, but is encouraged and coordinated by a gang of white officers.”
Black co-workers were told that “We don’t want Blacks here” and “Go Back to your country,” the suit said. Black officers were mocked with “mimicking monkey noises over the intercom,” according to the suit, and one White officer sported a swastika tattoo.
This alleged discrimination was not limited to name-calling. The suit said “40 West” smuggled contraband, kept Black officers from desirable assignments, wrongly denied them promotion, and subject them to “unequal and harsher discipline.”
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One White officer, for example, wasn’t disciplined for having sexual relations with an inmate, and another wasn’t punished for keeping “thousands of dollars’ worth of drugs” in his locker.
Meanwhile, the suit said, Black officers were targeted because of their race or country of origin. In one incident, for example, a White officer threw a chair at a Black officer he accused of sleeping, according to the suit. The officer was not sleeping, the suit said — but White officers who sleep on the job routinely go unpunished.
The suit sought an unspecified amount of damages, among other relief.
In court documents, the department acknowledged that 40 West exists and that Black officers do not occupy higher ranks at the facility.
“The Department admits that some Department employees … have been referred to as ‘40 West’ or some iteration of ‘40 West,’” one court filing said. “The Department admits that there are currently no African and/or African American Lieutenants, majors, or Captains at MCTC.”
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Grant is waiting to return to work after MCTC tried to terminate him, he said, in retaliation for filing the lawsuit and an internal review board found in his favor. Despite the adversity he’s faced at MCTC, he wants to work there in the years to come. The job pays well, and he has two children.
Although MCTC is a tough place to work, Grant said, he’s not worried about the environment. He’s worried about his colleagues.
“I like the work, but honestly it’s not inmates that make it bad,” he said. “It’s fellow officers.”
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