HARTSVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Advocates are concerned after they heard a nurse was brutally attacked by a prisoner at the Trousdale Turner Correctional Center.
It happened on Friday around 6p.m. According to a spokesperson for CoreCivic, the facility was placed on lock-down and the employee is expected to be okay. CoreCivic is a private Nashville-based company that's been under scrutiny for years.
"People should be asking, what needs to be done that something like this does not happen again?" Alex Friedmann said, "This particular facility has a really abysmal track record."
Friedmann is the Associate Director of the Human Rights Defense Center. He's been analyzing how the prison operates.
"That track record includes very critical audits both internal and by the Tennessee Comptroller's office citing the facility for under-staffing, for misuse of solitary confinement, there's been at least one murder at the facility, two suicides, multiple overdoses, staff members have been seriously injured before," Friedmann said, "I think some people are concerned about working there."
Additional details on the attack have not been released. The prisoner has not been charged, and his name has not been confirmed.
"CoreCivic tends to be very non-transparent, they do not release information to the media or to the public," Friedmann said.
A CoreCivic spokesperson issued a statement, it said in part: "Our focus continues to be on supporting our employee (who remains hospitalized,) the employee's family members and cooperating with the investigation."
Since citizens feel in the dark, they made an anonymous Facebook group called 'Trousdale Turner - Close it Down' where they discuss things that happen there. The Tennessee Department of Correction has no comment since it's an ongoing investigation.
