Five Woodbury County corrections officers fired

Five Woodbury County corrections officers have been fired and two others reprimanded by Sheriff Dave Amick following a June 10th incident at the county jail that was captured on videotape. The tape shows as they finished booking 19-year-old Benjamin Fleener of Moville, one or more of the officers slammed his face down on a ledge in the booking area, kneed him in the stomach or groin area twice, elbowed him in the back and punched him three times in the stomach. According to a statement four of the officers gave to their attorney, Fleener had been arrested for threatening to kill a family member and had kicked out a window in the arresting deputy’s vehicle. They say he remained “highly uncooperative” and they were only following proper procedure as they’d been trained to do. The incident remains under investigation by the county attorney’s office.