Less than four months after a court-appointed manager took over key parts of the city’s jail system, the correction officers’ union is already fighting one of his first big hires: Sarena Townsend, a reformer who ran the department’s misconduct investigations until she was forced out four years ago.
Townsend is returning to an expanded version of her old job, and the union, which celebrated her ouster, is asking the federal judge in charge of the overhaul to “reassess” the move.
The Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association called Townsend’s return “a regressive decision” in a letter filed this week in the long-running federal case over violence in the city’s jails. The letter signed by COBA President Benny Boscio Jr. said Townsend “has shown herself to be incapable of dealing fairly with the uniformed members of DOC” and accuses her of taking the job “to exact revenge upon COBA and its membership.”…