Two officers hospitalized after possible prison gang attack

NASHVILLE - One of the officers assaulted at a Tennessee prison Sunday has been released from the hospital, and the two others involved are in stable condition, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction. The department, with the help of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, continues to investigate the attack, which included one officer being taken hostage at a prison about 60 miles southwest of Nashville.

Officer Lester Ball was treated and released overnight, while officers Jesse Shockley and Paul Nielsen remain hospitalized in stable condition, the department said in a news release.

“During the course of the disturbance, the three officers were stabbed multiple times. Two of those officers, Ball and Nielsen, were removed from the unit immediately,” the release states.

“Officer Jesse Shockley was held hostage for approximately three hours. TDOC’s Special Operations Unit responded and regained control of the unit without force at approximately 7:00 pm, allowing Officer Shockley to be removed without further incident. All three officers were taken by helicopter to a local hospital. There were no other injuries.”

Sunday at 4 p.m., 16 inmates created a “disturbance” at the Turney Center Industrial Complex, a prison in Only, Tenn. The release states the inmates’ attack was “unprovoked” and the inmates “may have ties to a security threat group.” Security threat group is a department euphemism used to describe gangs.

“This attack was really driven by, I think, started as a verbal confrontation between an officer and an inmate and it escalated from there. Totally no indicators that anything was going to happen. Just a person who was serving a lot of time who made a bad decision,” Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Tony Parker said during a news conference Monday.