Former Arkansas officer arrested, charged with assault in beating of handcuffed inmate

A former Arkansas police officer who was caught on video beating a handcuffed inmate in the back of his patrol car last year has been arrested and charged with aggravated assault.

Former Jonesboro Police Officer Joseph Tucker Harris, 29, was arrested on Tuesday on charges of felony charges of aggravated assault, filing a false report, and misdemeanor third-degree battery. Harris was released from a county detention center on $15,000 bond.

Harris was fired in August after 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.

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 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.

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.