“I’VE DONE NOTHING WRONG”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Apr. 13, 2017) — As The Post & Email reported on Wednesday, on April 3, then-TTCC inmate Grenda Harmer was approached in the prison law library by two correction officers who confiscated the documents on which he had been working and launched an “investigation” while beginning punitive measures against him.
In a letter dated the same day, Harmer indicated that he expected retaliation from TTCC staff to include physical harm.
A significant number of inmates including Harmer have contacted The Post & Email over the last year describing dangerous and substandard conditions at TTCC as well as inmate abuse by corrections staff. The facility is Tennessee’s newest prison, owned and operated by private company CoreCivic.
One of Harmer’s recent grievances focused on the Tennessee statute which provides for only one privately-operated prison in the state. Tennessee currently has four privately-run prisons, with TTCC having opened in January of last year.
Other grievances have included the failure of prison staff to contain gang members, the denial of his prescription Prilosec for acid reflux disorder, enrollment in a federally-funded class for which he does not qualify, inmate drug abuse and death, and the apparent withholding of correspondence from The Post & Email by a correction officer.
One day after The Post & Email contacted the contracted medical provider for the prison and Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) Communications Director Neysa Taylor to ask why the prescription was not being administered, it was reinstated.
In an April 5 letter, Harmer described the timeline of events which unfolded rapidly after his documentation was taken. That letter began:
Well, as you can see I’ve a new address. On Monday morning (April 3rd) Sgt. Douglas and Officer Hoskins went to my cell around 10:30 am and shook my property down. They tore my stuff up. My cell was eligible for federal disaster relief.
Around 11:00 am Sgt. Douglas and Officer Hoskins came to the library and searched me, then had me stand about 10 feet away while they searched my legal papers. They confiscated my legal work, TDOC and CCA policies as well as TCIX and TTCC post orders. They also took even personal letters from you…
The letter continued, “Anyways, around 11:25 am they left. At around 11:50 am Sgt. Douglas and Officer Hoskins ordered me to put my hands on the wall. They handcuffed me and then took me to Intake. Around 2:00 pm they escorted me to segregation pending investigation. When they took me to AB-215 the inmate in that cell started screaming he can’t cell with me because we got in a fight at Turney Center. So they took me back to Intake. Here is where it gets funny.”
In Harmer’s own writing, the remainder of that part of the story is:
In the early hours of April 5, Harmer was relocated to the South Central Correctional Facility (SCCF) in Clifton, TN, which is another CoreCivic facility.