An inmate at a New York City prison was stabbed 44 times by MS-13 gang members in a horrifying attack which has spotlighted conditions at the notorious jail.
Shocking video obtained by NY Daily News shows the brutal frenzy unfolding at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center in April.
The agonizing attack goes on for 37 seconds before a single corrections officer runs over to intervene.
The victim survived, but his ordeal is being used as evidence of the nightmarish conditions at the jail which lawyers, judges and inmates including sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell have complained about.
The clip shows him sat at a table in the communal area when one of the gang members sidles up and pulls something out of his waistband.
The attacker, believed to be violent offender Luis ‘Inquieto’ Rivas, draws back his arm and plunges it into the victim.
As he begins writhing in pain, two other suspects come over to help hold him down and begin sinking their own weapons in.
They pull the victim from his chair and throw him to the ground, all the while furiously stabbing him all over.
The victim continues squirming along the floor as the blows continue to rain down.
Eventually, a lone corrections officer runs over and the group of attackers flee the scene.
Meanwhile, the victim manages to get up and stagger out of the frame leaving splashes of blood on the ground.
Shortly after another officer appears in the frame with his baton raised and begins chasing one of the inmates.
More staff arrive on the scene and eventually one of the suspects is seen being led away in handcuffs.
Rivas, the chief suspect, is currently serving a 35-year sentence for the decapitation of a 16-year-old boy who refused to execute a friend at his gang boss’ order.
Rivas was given an additional five years in jail for stabbing a rival gang member at the now shuttered Manhattan Detention Complex, where Jeffrey Epstein was housed prior to his suicide.
Prison guards found two shivs on him and one of the other attackers, one five and half inches long and another which was ten and a half inches.
No additional charges have been filed yet over this latest prison stabbing, but Rivas is facing internal disciplinary action.
MS-13 is an international criminal gang which was founded in Los Angeles by Salvadoran immigrants who came to the US in order to escape the civil war in their home country, according to the DOJ.
The attack at the prison is the latest in a long line of incidents which have prompted complaints about conditions.
One instance saw staff sit on a patient’s CT scans which indicated he had cancer, resulting in the mass in his lungs to double in size while awaiting treatment.
Last year, a report indicated that 44 percent of correction officer positions were unfilled.
‘I’ve been around for decades. The conditions at the MDC are the worst that I’ve ever seen,’ defense attorney Anthony Ricco told NY Daily News. ‘What we’re seeing is really a complete breakdown of professionalism at this facility.’
Emery Nelson, a spokesperson for the federal Bureau of Prisons, said the agency has assigned an ‘an executive-level after action team’ to review the stabbing, and the murders in June and July.
‘The assigned team includes high-level supervisory employees external to Brooklyn to review all aspects of the incidents and provide a detailed report for corrective actions to be considered,’ he said.