CLEVELAND, Ohio — A Cuyahoga County Jail officer accused of attacking a praying inmate was suspended without pay for five days.

Christopher Perdue, who has been a corrections officer for one year and is a member of the Special Response Team, was issued the discipline for “unnecessary contact” with an inmate.

He will serve his suspension the week of March 17. Adam Chaloupka, the attorney for the Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, said the union plans on fighting the suspension by taking it to arbitration.

“We feel like he handled this in a textbook fashion,” Cahloupka said.

Cuyahoga County spokeswoman Mary Louise Madigan said the case has been referred to the county prosecutor’s office to review to see if criminal charges are warranted.

The incident happened about 9 p.m. Nov. 3 as the inmate prayed between two beds in a cell that wasn’t his so he could face east, the records say.

Perdue asked him to move and gave him several other areas to pray, the records say. Perdue asked for help from a supervisor as the inmate refused to move.

Perdue told investigators that the inmate challenged him to a fight and rammed his shoulder into the officer, the records say. That, however, was not captured on surveillance or body camera video and several witnesses told investigators the inmate never hit Perdue.

Surveillance video showed that the inmate gathered his belongings when Purdue grabbed him in a choke hold by the throat and lifted him up off the ground, the records say.

Purdue walked the inmate, still in the headlock, about 30 feet to the pod’s door. He tried to unlock the door, then slammed the inmate to the ground after other officers arrived to help him, according to the records.

Purdue told investigators that he had the only set of keys for that pod, but investigators noted that the keys were located elsewhere in the jail.

“Since the inmate posed no immediate threat, OFC Perdue should have walked away from the inmate and opened the pod door so pack-up could gain entry,” the report says.

Purdue said in a written statement provided to investigators that the inmate was “argumentative” and that he tried to use verbal deescalation techniques. He also said the inmate attacked him first and that he was alone in a pod with 55 other inmates when the altercation happened, leading him to believe that the use of force was necessary.

Several inmates who witnessed the incident gave written statements to investigators saying that the inmate never fought back during the attack and that Perdue had initially asked the inmate “nicely” to move before the two argued.

The inmate, in a letter sent to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, wrote that he believed he was attacked because he had interviewed with the Washington D.C.-based U.S. Marshals team that conducted a review of the jail and found “inhumane” conditions for inmates.

Chaloupka said the inmates’ refusal to comply with Perdue’s orders allowed for some level of use of force.