Latest news with #RyanGustin
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Tennessee prison riot contained after several hours; 3 inmates and 1 guard injured
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Inmates at a Tennessee prison sought to destroy property, compromised security cameras and set a few fires during a riot that took several hours to contain and caused minor injuries to three inmates and one guard, the facility's private operator said. On Sunday evening, a large group of inmates at Trousdale Turner Correctional Center from several housing units left their cells and accessed an inner yard, becoming 'disruptive and confrontational' and refusing to follow the staff's directions, according to CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin. The prison in Hartsville, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Nashville, is the subject of an ongoing U.S. Department of Justice investigation. One correctional officer was assaulted and released from the hospital. Three inmates were being treated for minor injuries, Gustin said. The prison's staff used chemical agents on the inmates, who were secured by early Monday morning. They did not reach the perimeter and state troopers and local law enforcement officers were positioned outside the facility. The Tennessee Highway Patrol deployed about 75 troopers and the agency remained on site overnight until 'every prisoner had been accounted for,' Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security spokesperson Jason Pack said. The prison remained on lockdown while CoreCivic and the Tennessee Department of Correction investigate the riot, Gustin said. The incident followed an assault by two Trousdale inmates Saturday that injured a correctional officer who remains at the hospital, Gustin said. Last August, the U.S. Department of Justice announced an investigation into the Trousdale prison after years of 'reports of physical assaults, sexual assaults, murders and unchecked flow of contraband and severe staffing shortages,' according to then-U.S. Attorney Henry Leventis. The department confirmed Monday the investigation remains ongoing. Tennessee's corrections agency has fined CoreCivic $37.7 million across four prisons since 2016, including for understaffing violations. Records obtained by The Associated Press also show the company has spent more than $4.4 million to settle about 80 lawsuits and out-of-court complaints alleging mistreatment — including at least 22 inmate deaths — at four Tennessee prisons and two jails since 2016. The state comptroller released scathing audits in 2017, 2020 and 2023. The Brentwood, Tennessee-based company has defended itself by pointing to industry-wide problems with hiring and keeping workers. CoreCivic has said it offers hiring incentives and strategically backfills with workers from other facilities nationally. Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee's administration has stood by CoreCivic. However, the Republican-led Legislature this year showed its concern by unanimously passing a bill that would move 10% of inmates out of a private prison each time the annual death rate is twice as high as a comparable state-run facility. Lee signed the legislation. Department of Correction spokesperson Sarah Gallagher said the agency is developing a procedure to calculate and report the death rate for 2025 under the new law. The legislation was spurred by the advocacy of Tim Leeper, a roofing businessman who has attended the same local Rotary Club as the two Republicans who ultimately sponsored the bill, Rep. Clark Boyd and Sen. Mark Pody. Leeper's son Kylan was an inmate at Trousdale when he died of a fentanyl overdose. His family has sued CoreCivic over his death.
Hamilton Spectator
an hour ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Tennessee prison riot contained after several hours; 3 inmates and 1 guard injured
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Inmates at a Tennessee prison destroyed property, compromised security cameras and set a few fires during a riot that took several hours to contain and caused minor injuries to three inmates and one guard, the facility's private operator said. On Sunday evening, a large group of inmates at Trousdale Turner Correctional Center from several housing units left their cells and accessed an inner yard, becoming 'disruptive and confrontational,' according to CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin. The prison in Hartsville, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Nashville, is the subject of an ongoing U.S. Department of Justice investigation . One correctional officer was assaulted and released from the hospital. Three inmates were being treated for minor injuries, Gustin said. The prison's staff used chemical agents on the inmates, who were secured by early Monday morning. They did not reach the perimeter and state troopers and local law enforcement officers were positioned outside the facility. The Tennessee Highway Patrol deployed about 75 troopers and the agency remained on site overnight until 'every prisoner had been accounted for,' Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security spokesperson Jason Pack said. The prison remained on lockdown while CoreCivic and the Tennessee Department of Correction investigate the riot, Gustin said. The incident followed an assault by two Trousdale inmates Saturday that injured a correctional officer who remains at the hospital, Gustin said. Last August, the U.S. Department of Justice announced an investigation into the Trousdale prison after years of 'reports of physical assaults, sexual assaults, murders and unchecked flow of contraband and severe staffing shortages,' according to then-U.S. Attorney Henry Leventis. The department confirmed Monday the investigation remains ongoing. Tennessee's corrections agency has fined CoreCivic $37.7 million across four prisons since 2016, including for understaffing violations. Records obtained by The Associated Press also show the company has spent more than $4.4 million to settle about 80 lawsuits and out-of-court complaints alleging mistreatment — including at least 22 inmate deaths — at four Tennessee prisons and two jails since 2016. The state comptroller released scathing audits in 2017 , 2020 and 2023 . The Brentwood, Tennessee-based company has defended itself by pointing to industry-wide problems with hiring and keeping workers. CoreCivic has said it offers hiring incentives and strategically backfills with workers from other facilities nationally. Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee's administration has stood by CoreCivic. However, the Republican-led Legislature this year showed its concern by unanimously passing a bill that would move 10% of inmates out of a private prison each time the annual death rate is twice as high as a comparable state-run facility. Lee signed the legislation. Department of Correction spokesperson Sarah Gallagher said the agency is developing a procedure to calculate and report the death rate for 2025 under the new law. The legislation was spurred by the advocacy of Tim Leeper, a roofing businessman who has attended the same local Rotary Club as the two Republicans who ultimately sponsored the bill, Rep. Clark Boyd and Sen. Mark Pody. Leeper's son Kylan was an inmate at Trousdale when he died of a fentanyl overdose. His family has sued CoreCivic over his death. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Tennessee prison riot contained after several hours; 3 inmates and 1 guard injured
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Inmates at a Tennessee prison destroyed property, compromised security cameras and set a few fires during a riot that took several hours to contain and caused minor injuries to three inmates and one guard, the facility's private operator said. On Sunday evening, a large group of inmates at Trousdale Turner Correctional Center from several housing units left their cells and accessed an inner yard, becoming 'disruptive and confrontational,' according to CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin. The prison in Hartsville, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Nashville, is the subject of an ongoing U.S. Department of Justice investigation. One correctional officer was assaulted and released from the hospital. Three inmates were being treated for minor injuries, Gustin said. The prison's staff used chemical agents on the inmates, who were secured by early Monday morning. They did not reach the perimeter and state troopers and local law enforcement officers were positioned outside the facility. The Tennessee Highway Patrol deployed about 75 troopers and the agency remained on site overnight until 'every prisoner had been accounted for,' Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security spokesperson Jason Pack said. The prison remained on lockdown while CoreCivic and the Tennessee Department of Correction investigate the riot, Gustin said. The incident followed an assault by two Trousdale inmates Saturday that injured a correctional officer who remains at the hospital, Gustin said. Last August, the U.S. Department of Justice announced an investigation into the Trousdale prison after years of 'reports of physical assaults, sexual assaults, murders and unchecked flow of contraband and severe staffing shortages,' according to then-U.S. Attorney Henry Leventis. The department confirmed Monday the investigation remains ongoing. Tennessee's corrections agency has fined CoreCivic $37.7 million across four prisons since 2016, including for understaffing violations. Records obtained by The Associated Press also show the company has spent more than $4.4 million to settle about 80 lawsuits and out-of-court complaints alleging mistreatment — including at least 22 inmate deaths — at four Tennessee prisons and two jails since 2016. The state comptroller released scathing audits in 2017, 2020 and 2023. The Brentwood, Tennessee-based company has defended itself by pointing to industry-wide problems with hiring and keeping workers. CoreCivic has said it offers hiring incentives and strategically backfills with workers from other facilities nationally. Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee's administration has stood by CoreCivic. However, the Republican-led Legislature this year showed its concern by unanimously passing a bill that would move 10% of inmates out of a private prison each time the annual death rate is twice as high as a comparable state-run facility. Lee signed the legislation. Department of Correction spokesperson Sarah Gallagher said the agency is developing a procedure to calculate and report the death rate for 2025 under the new law. The legislation was spurred by the advocacy of Tim Leeper, a roofing businessman who has attended the same local Rotary Club as the two Republicans who ultimately sponsored the bill, Rep. Clark Boyd and Sen. Mark Pody. Leeper's son Kylan was an inmate at Trousdale when he died of a fentanyl overdose. His family has sued CoreCivic over his death.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Leavenworth sues to keep CoreCivic from reopening Kansas prison as ICE detention facility
CoreCivic plans to reopen its Leavenworth facility, closed since 2021, as an ICE detention facility. City officials have sued. (Morgan Chilson/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA — The city of Leavenworth and CoreCivic will take their fight to court June 9 to determine whether the company can reopen its prison facility as an ICE detention center without going through a permitting process. Attorneys for Leavenworth filed suit in March in U.S. District Court against the Nashville-based company, which ran the Leavenworth Detention Center before it was closed in 2021. CoreCivic announced its intent to reopen its prison facility as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center, which would be named the Midwest Regional Reception Center. In its initial filing, city attorneys said CoreCivic must apply for and receive a supplemental use permit to reopen and operate the prison. 'Our facility – which has been in Leavenworth since 1992 – is and always has been properly zoned,' said CoreCivic spokesman Ryan Gustin in an email. 'Leavenworth's city code designates our site as an existing special use and lawful conforming use.' The city recently passed a resolution that indicated CoreCivic needed permission to open its facility, Gustin said. 'There's nothing in Leavenworth's code that allows for such a resolution to rescind zoning,' he said. City officials do not agree. In a 211-page filing with attachments, their attorneys said that, while the lawsuit is about the need for proper permitting, there were other problems too. From 1992 to 2021, when CoreCivic operated the detention center, the company 'became embroiled in multiple widely publicized scandals resulting from its gross mismanagement of the Facility and the ensuing rampant abuse, violence, and violations of the constitutional rights of its detainees and staff,' the filing said. 'CoreCivic's mismanagement directly and indirectly impacted the City in countless ways, including for example, by imposing unexpected maintenance costs on its taxpayers, unreasonably increasing the burden on the City's police and law enforcement agencies to address violent crime, and even impeding the City's investigation of sexual assaults and other violent crimes against detainees and staff,' the filing said. The city's lawsuit contends that CoreCivic was already operating the prison when the city enacted its development rules that require a permit, so the business was grandfathered in under the new rules. But by ceasing operations for three years, the filing said, CoreCivic must now apply for the special use permit. In fact, CoreCivic applied for a special use permit in February 2025 but about three weeks later withdrew that application, the city's filing said. Community activists are speaking about against the idea of CoreCivic operating a prison in Leavenworth. Former CoreCivic employees regularly speak at city and county meetings about their negative experiences working in the closed detention center, and state organizations including the Kansas ACLU have helped organize press conferences and rallies. Objections include how CoreCivic operates, whether people held at the facility will be released into the community, and general opposition to immigrant detention centers. Gustin said the company, as of April 30, had received applications from more than 1,100 people who want to work at the site. 'Despite what politically extreme outsider groups are saying, potential new employees and local business partners are excited to be part of what we're creating in Leavenworth,' said Misty Mackey, warden of the new facility, in a press release. 'We're looking forward to operating a safe, transparent, accountable facility that will be a positive for this community dedicated to public service.' Gustin said there has been inaccurate reporting about employees working on a job at the prison to replace the facility's roof. CoreCivic issued cease-and-desist letters to those who accused the roofing company, Bass Roofing and Restoration, Fort Worth, of hiring workers without the proper permits. 'Any claims that our company has a contractor working for us at our Leavenworth facility that has undocumented or unauthorized workers doing the work are completely false,' he said. 'We have been furnished documentation of the legal status of all workers on the roofing project at our facility from the primary contractor and subcontractor.' The company has said that it will use local contractors at the facility, and Gustin said CoreCivic did reach out to local vendors. 'Experience in roofing our facilities and experience working on our federally contracted facilities is a factor we evaluate in reviewing bids,' he said. 'It's important to note that the roofing contractor who was selected for this project has handled similar work at another of our federal facilities, which required special clearances for workers.' Although aware of community disagreement about the facility, Gustin said CoreCivic wants to work with Leavenworth city and county officials. 'In addition to the impact fees we've agreed to pay – and the property tax we already pay – we've worked to both listen to and be transparent with the community,' he said. CoreCivic has offered the following impact fees: One-time impact fee of $1,000,000 to the city of Leavenworth Annual impact fee of $250,000 to the city of Leavenworth Additional $150,000 annually to the police department Gustin said no one detained at the facility will be released directly into the Leavenworth community, which is one opposition point. 'Our facility will operate with strong oversight and accountability from our government partners, including regular audits and onsite monitors,' he said.
Yahoo
23-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Private prison says it has ‘right' to run ICE detention in KS, doesn't need city's OK
Despite withdrawing an application to operate its shuttered jail facility as an immigrant detention center from the city of Leavenworth, CoreCivic appears poised to pursue a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement anyway. CoreCivic's spokesperson Ryan Gustin said in a written statement, 'we look forward to continuing to serve our federal partners at our Midwest Regional Reception Center,' citing the company's 'long and positive' relationship with the Leavenworth community. When the city of Leavenworth announced last week that CoreCivic was no longer pursuing a special use permit, many people thought that meant tentative plans had been scrapped. 'This was a win for how the community of Leavenworth came together, spoke their truth, and said 'no'. But it speaks volumes that CoreCivic couldn't bear even this small amount of accountability,' the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas said in a statement. According to City Manager Scott Peterson, the reasoning behind CoreCivic's abrupt about-face on the application has nothing to do with a change in the company's vision for entering into a contract with ICE to house hundreds of rounded up immigrants. The facility has undergone no structural changes since its contract serving as a maximum-security detention center for the U.S. Marshals Service expired under a Joe Biden executive order more than three years ago. Gustin said earlier this month that his company believes it has 'always operated this facility by right.' CoreCivic currently runs 14 immigrant detention centers around the country. He refused to explain the abrupt withdrawal of the special use permit application or expound on the prison company's plan for the Leavenworth facility in a phone call. 'The guidance I'm getting right now is that the extent of our comments are contained in the statement I just provided to you,' Gustin told a reporter. ICE did not respond to requests for comment for this story and has not acknowledged The Star's Freedom Of Information Act request for communications between agency officials and CoreCivic. Under the terms of an agreement signed last month by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, an unspecified number of Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents will be enlisted to help ICE arrest immigrants in the state. Forgoing the application, which the city requested as a condition for reopening the facility, means abandoning plans for at least three public meetings where the request would be discussed. The City Commission's calendar called for a final ruling on the application in May. Over the past three years, repeated efforts by CoreCivic to advance its ICE proposal have fallen apart amid local resistance. Some detractors have highlighted the prison's history of violence and others have expressed anti-immigrant sentiments and worry that people brought to the detention center might take up permanent residence in Leavenworth. 'Taking a profit-driven shortcut and ignoring real people's input would be consistent with CoreCivic's track record across the country and locally,' the ACLU said in its statement. 'Previously, at the same facility they seek to reopen under an ICE contract, CoreCivic ignored the voices of staff, detainees, and even the Department of Justice who all raised concerns about understaffing, safety, and security. That disregard had dangerous and sometimes deadly consequences and resulted in serious human rights violations.' William Rogers, a Wyandotte County resident and former prison guard who worked at CoreCivic's Leavenworth facility from 2016 to 2020, said chronic understaffing precipitated rampant drug use and an environment of violence in the private prison. He said he was stabbed by an inmate in 2020 and received 14 stitches after his head was split open in a separate altercation. On multiple occasions, he attempted life-saving measures on inmates who had committed suicide or overdosed. 'After you get stabbed or after you have someone die in your hands, nobody ever came to you and said, 'Hey, Bill, are you all right? Are you ready to work? Are you good to go back?'' Rogers said. 'Had they had those hearings, I believe there was going to be quite a few people come out and speak about the realities of CoreCivic.' Peterson said Monday that the commission would discuss possible paths forward at Tuesday evening's special meeting. The five-member commission held a 40-minute executive session to discuss legal strategies but took no binding action. Assistant City Manager Penny Holler deferred to CoreCivic for comment Tuesday about future plans for the rebranded prison and the city government's involvement in its potential reopening. Before the closure at the end of 2021, the CoreCivic facility was so understaffed and violent that U.S. District Court Judge Julie Robinson called it a 'hell-hole' in its final months. Justin Gust, vice president of community engagement at El Centro, shared the city of Leavenworth's Facebook post on Friday, thanking the more than 1,600 people who signed a petition calling for the denial of the application. He said he's still cautiously optimistic about the ability of grassroots organizations to influence what could be a bitter fight over whether CoreCivic can agree to house as many as 1,033 immigrants arrested by ICE. That fight could play out as President Donald Trump ramps up his mass deportation push. 'Some of the federal administration and also state government have just been using similar tactics of we're just going to proceed even though it's not in the due process or the right procedures or, you know, lawful, and just wait and see what happens in court,' said Gust, whose nonprofit resource center provides educational, social and economic services for Hispanic families in and around Kansas City. 'I'm not terribly surprised that that is the tactic they're just trying to use. But we're still watching and very concerned. I think it's good to still try to celebrate a small win because they took it back for some reason, whether they just didn't want to deal with the community pushback or they're just trying to plan a different route to get it done without that hassle.'
