By Paul Egan
Detroit Free Press
LANSING, Mich. — A corrections officer was stabbed and another suffered scrapes after an attack by an inmate with a weapon at Marquette Branch Prison on Tuesday. But none of the injuries was life-threatening, a spokesman confirmed.
Also, a Trinity Services Group prison food worker was fired Tuesday after she was caught inappropriately communicating with an inmate at the Charles Egeler Reception and Guidance Center in Jackson, Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Chris Gautz told the Free Press.
In the incident at Marquette Branch Prison at Marquette, an inmate with the highest security rating — a Level 5 — used a weapon to attack a corrections officer, who suffered superficial puncture wounds in the arm and head, Gautz said.
Another officer, who responded and helped to restrain the inmate inside the housing unit, suffered scrapes to the head and arm, he said.
Both officers were sent to a hospital for assessment and treatment and released, he said.
The inmate, who is serving a life sentence, was transferred to another prison and could face charges, Gautz said. Michigan State Police were notified. It will be up to the local prosecutor to determine whether charges should be brought against an inmate who is not expected to ever be released, he said.
An investigation continues into how the inmate obtained the weapon and what prompted the attack, Gautz said. Based on initial reports, “the officer gave the prisoner an order to do something, and he took issue with that,” he said.
In the Tuesday incident at Charles Egeler, where new inmates are housed temporarily until they are assigned to prisons where they will serve their sentences, a Trinity Services Group worker was fired for over-familiarity with an inmate, Gautz said.
“She had been giving photographs to a prisoner and also trying to communicate with the prisoner,” possibly using the JPay prison e-mail system, he said.
In August 2015, Florida-based Trinity replaced Aramark Correctional Services, which is based in Philadelphia, as the state’s prison food contractor.
Aramark began a three-year, $145-million contract in December 2013, replacing about 370 unionized state employees who had helped provide meals to about 43,000 prisoners at 33 facilities.
The Free Press, using Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act, documented a litany of problems under Aramark’s watch. Issues have ranged from meal shortages, to maggots in the kitchen, the smuggling of drugs and other contraband by Aramark employees, Aramark workers engaging in sex acts with prisoners and attempting to hire one inmate to have another inmate assaulted.
Trinity’s contract included several financial sweeteners and is estimated to cost the state $158.8 million over three years.
As of March, 59 of Trinity’s kitchen employees had been fired and subjected to “stop orders,” banning them from prison property, for a variety of infractions, Gautz said earlier. Most of those related to over-familiarity, which can include things from telephoning or writing a letter to a prisoner to engaging in sex acts, he said. That compared to 102 stop orders issued to Aramark employees when it had been on the job the same length of time, he said.
Updated stop order numbers were not immediately available Thursday.