ELYRIA — A fired Lorain County Juvenile Detention Home worker has been indicted on a felonious assault charge for slamming an inmate at the facility face-first into a table.

James Catalano, 47, has told investigators that the 15-year-old boy he grabbed used a racial epitaph and began to “swing and flail” his arms, but in a security video of the incident the boy appears to keep his arms at his side as Catalano grabs him. The footage doesn’t have audio.

Both Catalano and the boy are white, but there were black inmates in the area when the incident occurred about 2:30 p.m. July 24. Detention home staff had just broken up a fight between other inmates when the incident occurred.

The boy and several others who weren’t involved in the fight in the facility’s common room were told to face the wall, but Catalano told investigators the boy kept looking at him.

The video — which county Prosecutor Dennis Will said was shown to grand jurors considering charges against Catalano — shows Catalano walk across the room and grab the boy and throw him to the table.

He then hands the boy off to other detention home workers at the facility, who hustled him out of the room.

The boy told investigators that he told Catalano “Get off me; I can walk” when the detention home worker grabbed him.

The boy also said that Catalano later visited him in his room to ask him what happened and he replied that “it’s on camera.” Catalano then said “Oh, you think so,” according to the county sheriff’s report.

The boy received 17 stitches to his chin at EMH Regional Medical Center before being returned to the detention home.

He was freed on house arrest in September after admitting to charges of disorderly conduct and carrying a concealed weapon.

The boy was arrested by Elyria police after a July 1 incident in which he threatened a Lake Avenue man with a submachine gun loaded with the wrong ammunition.

Catalano, a supervisor who had worked his way up the ranks at the detention home since 1989, was fired in September after an internal Juvenile Court review determined he “engaged in fighting and caused serious harm” to the boy.

Juvenile Court Administrator Doug Messer said Catalano has fought his termination. Messer upheld the firing, but he said Catalano has appealed through his union and the firing will be reviewed.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.