Exclusive | NYC correction officers union calls for firing of security chief after another slashing at Rikers

A correction officer was allegedly slashed in the head by a gangbanger during a fight inside troubled Rikers Island on Wednesday — leading the officer’s union to call for the firing of the jail’s security boss as attacks soar inside the lockup.The worker was breaking up a brawl in the Otis Bantum Correctional Center when accused Bloods member Kareem Reid, 30, allegedly knifed him from behind — even though the correction officer was protecting him from two rivals, said the guard, who requested anonymity.“I didn’t believe it because I’m here trying to protect him and the inmate is cutting an officer,” the 34-year-old worker told The Post.

The bloodshed erupted when the officer unleashed pepper spray at the beginning of the fight, leading Reid’s rivals to run away, he said. But as many as 15 inmates then surrounded the officer, according to his account of the attack.“I had the victim behind me to keep him from the other inmates getting to him,” the correction officer said. “At that point, they approach him, and out of nowhere, I feel swiping motions towards the back of my neck…That’s when inmates start yelling, ‘He’s cutting him, he’s cutting him.'”The officer then pepper sprayed him but it had little effect on the blade-wielding menace. “I hit him with the spray and he’s still coming after me,” he said. Eventually he and another co-worker wrestled him to the ground as backup arrived.“It happened so quick, but it felt like an eternity,” the shaken up worker recalled Wednesday, hours after the assault landed him at Mount Sinai Hospital. Reid, who was in lockup on murder charges for a 2020 Bronx homicide, was later charged with assault with a weapon, sources said.The correction officer has been attacked four times since he started working for the DOC in 2018.He said officers are “sitting ducks” while chaos runs rampant inside the beleaguered jail.  “Inmates need more consequences,” he said.

“We are prett...