Two Oklahoma prison guards as well as their supervisor have been charged with cruelty for allegedly forcing inmates to stand around for hours while listening to “Baby Shark” on repeat. In 2019, 21-year-old Christian Miles and Greg Butler Jr. are said to have handcuffed prisoners to a wall while listening to the children’s song at the Oklahoma County Detention Center in Oklahoma City, according to an affidavit obtained by Buzzfeed News.
- It caused “undue suffering.” According to the police report, two of the inmates were forced to stand for at least two hours with the song playing. Investigators claimed that the song was “on a loop to play repetitively aloud…thus putting undue emotional stress on the inmates who were most likely already suffering from physical stressors.”
- The prison officers saw it as “one big joke.” The report claimed that the guards were trying to “teach [inmates] a lesson” by playing “Baby Shark” on repeat and that they thought the whole thing was hilarious. Their shift commander, Christopher Hendershott, 50, not only knew about what the guards were doing but failed to stop them.
- All three men have been charged with multiple offenses. They’re facing “misdemeanor offenses of cruelty to prisoners, corporal punishment to an inmate, and conspiracy,” according to Buzzfeed News. As per the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office, the guards were no longer allowed to have contact with inmates once the allegations came to light in December 2019.
- Playing music on repeat is a documented form of psychological torture. CIA agents used it on suspected terror suspects during the George W. Bush administration, as revealed in a 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee Report. “We don’t tolerate it,” said Sheriff P.D. Taylor in a statement to the Oklahoman newspaper. “We always did an excellent job policing ourselves.
