Attack On Guard Raises Questions About Prison Staffing

Its obviously politics as usualy with George Little. Places like this often have rules that are written down and presented as the"official" way of doing things while everyone knows that the facility doesn't operate in the manner described. Then, when something happens, they step back and claim he wasn't following procedure when they knew procedure waan't being followed all along. It' despicable and those that engage in this practice should be crimannly charged when they know they are putting people's lives in danger. Thank you to Capt. Gary Hardcastle to have the bravery and moral dignity to tell it how it others.

Since Carl missed one thread, I will repost:

I found the following in another blog from when officer Church was injured and thought it should be reposted:

I have been in law enforcement for over 10 years. Officer Church is a fine officer. I have worked with him, and trust him with my life. Officer Church did the job that was asked of him that day. The post that he was working is a two person post. On paper that happends every day. In truth, the 2nd person is always tied up helping somewhere else on the compound. When the pay is substandard and you worry about the quality of offcer that is coming out of the correctional academy (the academy does what they can with what they get), you worry about some of the people that you work with. And there are always new faces because of the turn over rate. People leave because of stress (from inmates, and management), or to better paying departments. It is common to have half of shift working a double (16 hours). And now with the state hiring freeze things will continue to get worse. Internal affairs is even short, so it is harder to investigate the problems that they do have. On top of officer shortages, equipment is another issue. It is up to each warden of their facility as to what equipment is carried. At one facility every officer has freeze plus (pepper spray)on their belt, where Charles Bass Correctional Complex does not allow it. It is locked outside the compound in the armory, and good luck getting permission to get it brought inside. Which brings up another issue of wardens doing things as they please. TCA 39-17-1350 grants authority for all law enforcement officers to carry firearms at all times, to include vested correctional officers. This is state law, but TDOC policy grants each warden the ability to say that they cant lock their weapons up at their workplace, even though every facilty has an armory. So depending on your facility, you have uniformed law enforcement officers that travel to and from work unarmed (some 2 hours each way).Some gangs initiation is to bring in a bloody badge and it doesnt matter if it is a security guard, a corrctional officer, or a police officer. This just means our officers are put in a position where that cant protect themselves. Also TDOC vehicles that are used to chase ambulances to the hospital during emergencies (inmate on board, 10-33 traffic) are not allowed to have any other colors than clear/amber. Many of our vehicles have almost been involved in accidents because of this. And our Corretional Emergency Response Team CERT members are required to be at the facility within an hour of being alerted for an emergency (riot/escape/drill) but they are not allowed to use emergency lights on their personal vehicles and it it just good luck toyou getting there. Some facilities have unofficially told CERT members that they can install emergency lights on their personal vehicles, but wont admit to it, and wont back them if the officer is pulled over. And unless you are assigned to transportation every day, you are still using .38 revolvers, where full time transportation officers have Glock 22(.40 caliber semi automatics)Glock 23 for internal affairs. Full time transportation officers are assigned a set of body armor just for that person. Anybody else that has to go on a transportation run (happens all the time) they get a vest that is hanging up from a central location (control room/armory)that several other officers have worn since it was cleaned. The tragedy that happen to officer Church is just a small insight of what is wrong with the TDOC

I would like to hear more

Thank you all for keeping these threads alive. If I could put all the threads with the current posts into just one thread I would.

Oops. Several people use this computer, and it reverted back to one of their names, lol...
Thank you all for keeping these threads alive. If I could put all the threads with the current posts into just one thread I would.

Stir the kacky wrote:

I cant belive that more officers arent up in arms about the way they are treated. The TDOC have had their hands tied by backwards thinking policy makers for too long. Everyone needs to demand that the TDOC be the modern law enforcement agency that it needs to be.

These policy makers still think you can equip transportation vehicles used to chase ambulances with no lights or siren, or just amber/ clear lights. This is just stupid, not to mention illegal. Vannesa Kay act anyone?

Carry wrote:

<quoted text> These policy makers still think you can equip transportation vehicles used to chase ambulances with no lights or siren, or just amber/ clear lights. This is just stupid, not to mention illegal. Vannesa Kay act anyone?

Makes you wonder what it will take to get these policies to change? The commisioner of correction says what color lights the TDOC can run. Years ago they did run blue lights. But a couple officers played with them, and instead of dealing with those officers, everybody was punished. Now you have a situations where an officer today has to chase an ambulance that is running hot (10-33 traffic) from a facility to the ER and chances being hit because they dont have any lights to run. Policy says that you can not loose sight of the ambulance with the inmate on board, but TN traffic laws only exception to going over the speed limit running emergency traffic say you must be running lights and siren. Also without them, you can be charged with ambulance chasing.

TDOC corruption wrote:

<quoted text> Makes you wonder what it will take to get these policies to change? The commisioner of correction says what color lights the TDOC can run. Years ago they did run blue lights. But a couple officers played with them, and instead of dealing with those officers, everybody was punished. Now you have a situations where an officer today has to chase an ambulance that is running hot (10-33 traffic) from a facility to the ER and chances being hit because they dont have any lights to run. Policy says that you can not loose sight of the ambulance with the inmate on board, but TN traffic laws only exception to going over the speed limit running emergency traffic say you must be running lights and siren. Also without them, you can be charged with ambulance chasing.

The commisioner also has the power to swear in all officers in the TDOC as peace officers. He does it for the IA agents.

TDOC corruption wrote:

<quoted text> Makes you wonder what it will take to get these policies to change? The commisioner of correction says what color lights the TDOC can run. Years ago they did run blue lights. But a couple officers played with them, and instead of dealing with those officers, everybody was punished. Now you have a situations where an officer today has to chase an ambulance that is running hot (10-33 traffic) from a facility to the ER and chances being hit because they dont have any lights to run. Policy says that you can not loose sight of the ambulance with the inmate on board, but TN traffic laws only exception to going over the speed limit running emergency traffic say you must be running lights and siren. Also without them, you can be charged with ambulance chasing.

The TDOC would have a higher standard if they treated officer like they wer, oh, I dont know, maybe.....Officer?

Night watch wrote:

Since Carl missed one thread, I will repost:
I found the following in another blog from when officer Church was injured and thought it should be reposted:
I have been in law enforcement for over 10 years. Officer Church is a fine officer. I have worked with him, and trust him with my life. Officer Church did the job that was asked of him that day. The post that he was working is a two person post. On paper that happends every day. In truth, the 2nd person is always tied up helping somewhere else on the compound. When the pay is substandard and you worry about the quality of offcer that is coming out of the correctional academy (the academy does what they can with what they get), you worry about some of the people that you work with. And there are always new faces because of the turn over rate. People leave because of stress (from inmates, and management), or to better paying departments. It is common to have half of shift working a double (16 hours). And now with the state hiring freeze things will continue to get worse. Internal affairs is even short, so it is harder to investigate the problems that they do have. On top of officer shortages, equipment is another issue. It is up to each warden of their facility as to what equipment is carried. At one facility every officer has freeze plus (pepper spray)on their belt, where Charles Bass Correctional Complex does not allow it. It is locked outside the compound in the armory, and good luck getting permission to get it brought inside. Which brings up another issue of wardens doing things as they please. TCA 39-17-1350 grants authority for all law enforcement officers to carry firearms at all times, to include vested correctional officers. This is state law, but TDOC policy grants each warden the ability to say that they cant lock their weapons up at their workplace, even though every facilty has an armory. So depending on your facility, you have uniformed law enforcement officers that travel to and from work unarmed (some 2 hours each way).Some gangs initiation is to bring in a bloody badge and it doesnt matter if it is a security guard, a corrctional officer, or a police officer. This just means our officers are put in a position where that cant protect themselves. Also TDOC vehicles that are used to chase ambulances to the hospital during emergencies (inmate on board, 10-33 traffic) are not allowed to have any other colors than clear/amber. Many of our vehicles have almost been involved in accidents because of this. And our Corretional Emergency Response Team CERT members are required to be at the facility within an hour of being alerted for an emergency (riot/escape/drill) but they are not allowed to use emergency lights on their personal vehicles and it it just good luck toyou getting there. Some facilities have unofficially told CERT members that they can install emergency lights on their personal vehicles, but wont admit to it, and wont back them if the officer is pulled over. And unless you are assigned to transportation every day, you are still using .38 revolvers, where full time transportation officers have Glock 22(.40 caliber semi automatics)Glock 23 for internal affairs. Full time transportation officers are assigned a set of body armor just for that person. Anybody else that has to go on a transportation run (happens all the time) they get a vest that is hanging up from a central location (control room/armory)that several other officers have worn since it was cleaned. The tragedy that happen to officer Church is just a small insight of what is wrong with the TDOC

Since I had some people whine on other threads about it being ineficient to have several threads, I thought I would go find the rest and repost.

Repeater station wrote:

<quoted text>
Since I had some people whine on other threads about it being ineficient to have several threads, I thought I would go find the rest and repost.

Ty