Two federal lawsuits were filed this month against former Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond and the medical staff at Silverdale Detention Center, alleging medical neglect and inhumane living conditions in the facility.
One claims an inmate was kept in an overcrowded area in a moldy cell with waterlogged floors and a clogged toilet. The other claims medical staff did not respond to hundreds of requests made for medical assistance for cancer and other ailments. Both lawsuits were filed with the U.S. District Court in Chattanooga.
Hammond — who retired as sheriff Aug. 31 — declined to comment, citing pending litigation, as did the Hamilton County attorney’s office and the Sheriff’s Office.
The Sheriff’s Office previously said there is round-the-clock medical staff available for people housed at the facility, saying “inmates who become sick or injured are reviewed by medical personnel as needed and if sufficient medical care cannot be provided on-site, they will be transported to an outside medical facility as necessary,” and attributed any poor conditions in the facility to inmate vandalism.
According to documents obtained by the Chattanooga Times Free Press, Quality Correctional Health Care, an Alabama-based medical provider, has been contracted to provide medical care at Silverdale for 24 hours a day since Dec. 23, 2020, on a nearly $3 million yearly budget.
Edgar Goodwin, who filed a lawsuit on his own behalf, claims medical staff failed to respond to his repeated requests, stating that his 100 to 300 medical grievances have yet to be answered.
“To this day, for four months, (I) have still not been treated medically, for any of my medical conditions, in any capacity, at any time,” Goodwin wrote in the Jan. 3 lawsuit.
Goodwin has an extensive criminal record, according to the Hamilton County Criminal Court database, including assault on a police officer, escape from a jail or workhouse, and aggravated assault.
Goodwin, who is seeking $1 billion in compensation, claims he made several hundred requests to the nurse director for “stomach pain, joint body pain, TB, cancer, anemia, low red blood cell and white blood cell counts, extreme weight loss, skin irritations, groin pain, pain in private parts and all day and night cold chills and sweat,” according to the lawsuit.
He also said he’s been harassed by corrections officers because of his requests to see the medical staff, according to the lawsuit.
Similarly, Ervin Lavele Moore, 43, who has been at Silverdale since 2019 on one count of attempted first-degree murder and one count of aggravated assault charges in the 2018 assault of Roger Thomas, claims he’s been neglected by the medical staff following an assault.
Moore, who is being represented by Tullahoma-based attorney Derek Jordan, claims he was assaulted by four men April 22, after correctional officers placed him in the wrong housing unit, according to the lawsuit filed Jan. 6. The lawsuit does not specify a monetary compensation amount.
“Moore was stabbed in the left eyebrow resulting in eye pain, migraine headaches, insomnia, shortness of breath, PTSD and memory loss,” the lawsuit said.
After the attack, Moore was placed in a booking cell “where he remained, bleeding, for five hours before being taken to Erlanger hospital,” according to the lawsuit.
“When Moore was returned to Silverdale, he was placed in a unit known as the ‘hole,’” the lawsuit said. “The ‘hole’ suffers from notoriously bad living conditions, including a leaking ceiling, clogged toilets,and mold that aggravates Moore’s asthma.”
Moore claims he has been denied medications to treat his injuries stemming from the assault and asthma. The lawsuit says he continues to suffer from a severe hematoma as well as tissue swelling in the left side of his forehead, migraines, insomnia, persistent eye pain, shortness of breath, paranoia, PTSD and memory loss.
Inmates and families have alleged medical neglect by Silverdale staff before. Most recently, three Chattanooga-area families asked for the facility to be shut down during a Jan. 13 panel hosted at the Eastdale Village Community United Methodist Church. The families claimed their loved ones died at nearby hospitals as a direct result of medical neglect at Silverdale.
The event was hosted after a Chattanooga attorney requested her client be transferred from Silverdale to the Tennessee Department of Correction citing her client’s deteriorating mental health due to the inhumane conditions he was being housed in. The request was denied by a Hamilton County Criminal Court judge on Thursday.
A video first reported by the Times Free Press last month shows Harrison Alexander Ellison’s cell at Silverdale with a leaky ceiling. The video, released by Ellison’s attorney, Brandy Spurgin-Floyd, also shows used food containers, hanging linens and water on the floor.
Hamilton County District Attorney General Coty Wamp came to the defense of the Sheriff’s Office at Thursday’s hearing saying the “jail was sufficient to house all inmates.” Her predecessor, Neal Pinkston, had called Silverdale “one of the most dangerous places to be in our county.”
Contact La Shawn Pagán at lpagan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6476.
Staff photo by Olivia Ross / Then-Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond reflects on his time as sheriff Aug. 16.