A vicious prison beating reflects understaffing and training problems in Texas
Tim Nixon knew something bad was about to happen.
It was 9:15 p.m. on Sept. 5, and he had just been rousted from his cell by three guards whose names he didn’t know and whose name tags he said were obscured by full tactical riot gear.
The barking orders, the stiff, palpable tension, and the time of night told Nixon he needed to do as he was told and keep quiet. So, clad in just his boxers, he complied.
Nixon said they placed him in a holding cell about 40-50 feet down the hall directly across from another cell — cell number 1. Then the guards joined a half dozen others lined up outside cell 1.
“Call it intuition, call it whatever you want, you can tell that somebody is fixing to get their ass whooped,” said Nixon, a man who has served more than 30 years in Texas prisons.
The Alternative Living Unit or ALU where Nixon currently lived at Coffield Unit holds 12 men — often convicted of violence — in solitary confinement who have a high risk of escape or who have assaulted guards in the past, people like the occupant of Cell 1, Kiheem Grant.
https://www.tpr.org/criminal-justice/2023-10-30/a-prison-beating-by-guards-reflects-staffing-and-training-issue-something-texas-denies
Horror story. No matter what he did, there's no excuse for this.
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