The city’s child welfare agency plans to fire a juvenile counselor for choking a detainee and throwing another to the ground while breaking up a fight, according to an agency spokesman.
Counselor Mathews Judge, 49, was working at a Brownsville juvenile detention center when he responded to a group assault by slamming one resident to the floor and choking him with his forearm, hands and knee, according to administrative court records.
Judge and several other counselors were trying to break up an attack on one of the boys housed at Crossroads Juvenile Center in 2015.
After choking the first resident during the melee, Judge then ground his knee into the head of another who had just fallen to the ground and smashed his head against a brick wall, the documents said.
He then slammed a third to the ground.
Much of the brawl was captured on video.
Administrative law judge Kara Miller reviewed the case and recommended that Judge be fired.
“The video of this incident is shocking at times. It was a chaotic and, most likely, a frightening situation,” she wrote. “[But] the chaotic nature of the situation did not give respondent license to restrain residents however he may choose.”
A spokesperson at the Administration for Children’s Services said it intends to terminate Judge.
Judge, who earns $43,000, could not be reached for comment.