Warden, Four Other Louisiana Jailers Indicted for Brutalizing Compliant Detainees with Riot Shield
by Chuck Sharman
Five former officials at Louisiana’s Catahoula Parish Correctional Center (CPCC)—including the former warden, assistant warden and chief of security—were indicted on May 7, 2026, by a federal grand jury that charged them with civil rights violations for using an electrified riot shield to brutalize 13 compliant detainees two years earlier. It was unclear if the victims were pretrial detainees or convicted state prisoners; about half of them are held in local jails under agreement with the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services The parish maintains a 32-bed jail adjacent to the office of Sheriff Toney Edwards in Harrisonburg, and its 800-bed CPCC is located a few miles away.
The charges, which were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, included 13 counts of abuse of rights under color of law for former CPCC Warden Jeremy Scott Wiley, 44. He is accused of carrying out the assault. For failing to intervene to stop him, former Assistant Warden Gary Louis Allen, 57, was handed 13 counts on the same charge, as were former Col. William Terry Savage, 57, and former Chief of Security James Anthony Wathen, 37. Former Dep. Chad Wesley Littleton, 45, was charged with one count of abuse of rights under color of law for allegedly striking one victim in the head and genitals.
All five officials were also charged with conspiracy to violate the victims’ rights and falsifying official reports to cover up the incident. In addition, Allen faces one count of witness tampering. A sixth jail official, former Transportation Off. Carl Michael Williamson, 40, pleaded guilty on April 14 to abuse of rights under color of law, admitting that he struck one of the victims in the head. He also pleaded guilty to one count of falsifying a report to cover up the abuse of the 13 detainees. He was released on a personal recognizance bond to await sentencing. See: United States v. Williamson, USDC (W.D. La.), Case No. 1:26-cr-00127.
The incident unfolded at the jail on February 1, 2024, after the 13 victims began a protest against their conditions of confinement; at the time, they had been crowded together in a six-bed cell for several days, KNOE in Monroe reported. The protest was nonviolent, but guards pepper-sprayed the detainees and led them to the recreation yard. There they were handcuffed and lay prone on the ground when Wiley used the electrified riot shield to “shock and crush” them, according to the indictment.
It was unclear when or under what circumstances the former officials were separated from employment at the lockup. It was also unclear why they needed a riot shield in a parish with barely 8,000 people. The FBI investigated the incident. The charges are being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana. See: United States v. Wiley, USDC (W.D. La.), Case No. 1:26-cr-00190.
Additional source: KNOE
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