A former Jonesboro police officer accused of beating an inmate has been arrested.
On Tuesday, former JPD officer Joseph Harris turned himself in to the police at around 9:00 a.m. According to online jail records, Harris was charged with aggravated assault, filing a false police report, and third-degree battery. He was jailed on a $15,000 bond but was released 40 minutes later.
Harris was fired in August after he was caught on his patrol car camera punching, elbowing and slamming a car door against the head of detainee Billy Lee Coram, who was being transferred from a local hospital back to jail in Craighead County.
In a roughly 12-minute video, Coram is wearing a hospital gown and choking himself with a seatbelt wrapped around his neck as the car is moving. After the car pulls over, Harris opens the door and punches and elbows Coram several times in the face as he unwinds the belt.
Harris later slams the car door against Coram’s head. According to the federal lawsuit, Coram had been taken to the hospital after ingesting a baggie of fentanyl and had run away from the hospital when he panicked. He had wrapped the seatbelt around his neck to try and gag himself to dislodge the fentanyl he believed was still in his system, the lawsuit said.
Content partners K8 report that Harris is expected to appear in Circuit Court on Feb. 28 in relation to the case, but he asked the judge if the date could be moved because of a prior engagement that day. Harris has been under investigation by state and federal authorities and faces decertification as an officer. Harris' personnel files showed that he had a history of excessive force complaints against him dating as far back as 2022.
A phone number was not listed for Harris, and it was not clear if he had an attorney in the case. An attorney who represents Harris in a federal lawsuit filed by Coram did not respond to an email from the Associated Press late Wednesday afternoon.
The federal lawsuit Coram filed against Harris, the city of Jonesboro and Jonesboro's police chief over the beating is scheduled to go to trial in May 2026. Coram's lawsuit claims his constitutional rights were violated.
KASU News has reached out to the prosecuting attorney's office, and they declined to comment. We also reached out to Arkansas State Police, and they have yet to give a comment in time for the story.
