New York’s correctional officers union is calling for the security chief to be fired after another attack on Rikers

A corrections officer reportedly had his head slashed by a gangster during a brawl on troubled Rikers Island on Wednesday – prompting the officers’ union to call for the prison’s security chief to be fired amid increasing attacks inside the prison.

The worker was breaking up a fight at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center when accused Bloods member Kareem Reid, 30, allegedly stabbed him from behind – even as the correctional officer protected him from two rivals, said the guard, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“I didn’t believe it because I’m here to protect him and the inmate hurts an officer,” the 34-year-old worker told The Post.

The bloodshed broke out when the officer sprayed pepper spray early in the fight, causing Reid’s rival to flee, he said.

But according to his account of the attack, up to 15 inmates then surrounded the officer.

“I had the victim behind me to prevent the other inmates from getting to him,” the correctional officer said.

“At that point they approach him and out of nowhere I feel brushing movements on the back of my neck… That’s when the inmates start screaming, ‘He’s cutting him, he’s cutting him.'”

The officer then sprayed him with pepper spray, but that had little effect on the blade threat.

“I hit him with the spray and he’s still coming after me,” he said.

Eventually, he and another colleague fought him to the ground as reinforcements arrived.

“It happened so quickly, but it felt like an eternity,” the shaken worker recalled Wednesday, hours after the attack landed him in Mount Sinai Hospital.

Reid, who was serving time in prison on murder charges stemming from a 2020 Bronx killing, was later charged with assault with a weapon, sources said.

The correctional officer has been assaulted four times since he began working for the DOC in 2018.

He said officers were “on the wrong side” as chaos raged in the besieged prison.

“Inmates need more consequences,” he said. “We’re pretty much on the fence in the neighborhood and these people are just running around doing whatever they want.”

Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association President Benny Boscio echoed those sentiments when he called for the firing of Ronald Brereton, the DOC’s deputy commissioner for security operations.

“Today’s incident marks the latest epic security failure under the disastrous tenure of Deputy Commissioner for Security Ronald Brereton, whose sole responsibility is to ensure the security of the facilities,” Boscio said in a statement.

Brereton was appointed to the position in May 2022.

“Under his watch there have been almost 140 stabbing incidents, 92 stabbing incidents and over 400 attacks on correctional officers since December last year,” the union leader added.

“Instead of intensifying the critical search for weapons as is being carried out today and increasing the workforce of our Emergency Services Unit to make our facilities safer, Brereton has been busy taking disciplinary action against our officers.”

“Before his incompetence results in one of our officers or an inmate under our supervision being killed, Brereton should be fired immediately,” Boscio seethed.

“The health and safety of everyone who works and lives in our facilities will always be our top priority, and we will not tolerate violence against the hard-working men and women of this department,” DOC Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie said in a statement . “Our Correction Intelligence Bureau worked quickly with the Bronx District Attorney to process this individual for rearrest.”

Additional reporting by Tina Moore