The state Department of Correction says it's not true that the Bradley County Jail is so overcrowded it failed inspection because of a backlog of state prisoners.
That's the reason the sheriff's office gave earlier this week after state inspectors found prisoners packed into holding cells and residence pods with broken showers, sinks and toilets, no sheets, mattresses or towels and no soap or shampoo.
The Tennessee Corrections Institute refused to certify the jail, partly because of the crowding, and the sheriff's office released a media statement saying 151 prisoners were awaiting transfer to state prison.
"Our correctional staff has made numerous written requests to the Tennessee Department of Corrections [sic] to be accepted at their prisons," the release from Communications Director James Bradford stated.
That statement was a shock to the Tennessee Department of Correction [TDOC], spokeswoman Neysa Taylor said.
"That's the first that we'd heard about it," Taylor said by phone from Nashville on Friday.
"We were really dumbfounded by what we saw in the paper. We were like, 'Wait a minute. We don't have requests from him that say we have not responded to his inquiries,'" she said.
In fact, TDOC records show Watson asked on Feb. 22 to have three inmates moved to state prison, and a transport team did so the next day.
"Our records show whenever he or his people have contacted us, we've moved people," she said.
She said TDOC contacted the sheriff Wednesday after reading the newspaper story and offered housing space. Watson said he gave the state 60 men and 14 women; Taylor said there were 13 women.
So on Friday, Bradley County packed 60 convicted felons into an ordinary school bus for a 50-mile drive to the state prison in Bledsoe County, an expedition that nearly came to grief amid the morning commute on Interstate 75.
The big, yellow bus, which lacked a safety cage for driver and guard, wired windows or tether points for prisoner shackles, blew a front tire south of White Oak Mountain around 6 a.m. The driver kept control and pulled into the truck inspection station just before Exit 11, where Bradley and Hamilton county deputies stood guard while a substitute bus was summoned.
No one was hurt and the transfer went smoothly, but the sight of a dozen police cruisers, blue lights flashing, pulled onto the shoulder and off-ramp backed up southbound traffic for miles. A separate vehicle carrying Bradley female inmates to Nashville wasn't involved in the incident.
Asked how the state transports prisoners other than minimum-security inmates on work details, Taylor said its buses have reinforced windows and a barrier to protect the driver and a guard. Prisoners often are tethered to the bus with chains.
"We have specialty transportation buses that are outfitted to handle that level of security that we require," she said. There will be a pace vehicle as escort, and there are protocols and plans for backup in case of a flat tire or other problem.
"The reason for that is because inmate transport, be it a medical run or a court appearance [or other reason], that opens a window of vulnerability" that can be dangerous, she said.
In June 2017, a pair of Georgia inmates escaped from a prison bus by allegedly killing two guards. During a 60-hour manhunt, officials said, the men stole five vehicles, robbed two homes, broke into a house and tied up an elderly couple and fled police at speeds up to 100 mph before they were caught by an armed homeowner in Tennessee.
Overcrowding is a problem for most local jails, where people who have violated probation or are awaiting trial may live in the same room with convicted felons and people with mental illness who have committed crimes.
Counties can earn $39 a day housing state prisoners whose sentences are three years or less. The Bradley County Jail will lose around $85,000 a month by giving up 74 inmates, just as it is under a state mandate to make sure prisoners have bunks, uniforms, bed and bath linens and other supplies.
The Tennessee Corrections Institute's re-inspection originally was set for April 20, but a spokesman said Friday the date has been moved up to April 3.
Meanwhile, the sheriff's office is asking the Bradley County Commission to transfer nearly $37,000 budgeted for salaries and equipment to buy those supplies. The commission's finance committee will consider the request Monday.
Finance committee chairman Milan Blake said Friday the request is to move already budgeted money around, not to dip into reserves, which "we frown on."
Blake said the $39 daily rate for state prisoners isn't counted in revenue projections for the jail.
"I wouldn't call it icing on the cake, but it's over and above what's projected, and we base our budget on what's projected," he said.
Local resident Leslie Goode told the Times Free Press on Friday she just spent five days in the jail after being picked up on a Georgia warrant, getting out Wednesday.
Goode said she got to the jail around 7:30 p.m. Feb. 23. She stayed 15 hours in a holding cell with 12 other women where the only places to sit or lie down were the floor or concrete benches. Some women had to sit or lie near the toilet. Some had been in the cell for days without a shower, she said, and there were no mats to pad the benches or floor.
The jail staff lost her ID, she said, and couldn't find toilet paper for a man in the next cell nor clothes for another man who was being released.
"They lost all his property. They gave him a pair of overalls [from a castoff bin] with no shirt and a big pair of shoes. They told him it's not that cold outside," Goode said.
She was glad to be extradited to Georgia, she said.
"The Catoosa County Jail is amazing compared to what Bradley County is."
Contact staff writer Judy Walton at jwalton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6416.