Sheriff Jim Hammond, at a Thursday press conference, agreed that the Silverdale Detention Center is dangerous. He said, "You've got 1,100 inmates who have committed some of the worst offenses."
He added, "Yeah, we have problems, but we address those problems as best we can. There are some mean people in there. They'll kill you because you've got a red shirt on and they don't like it."
The sheriff, who noted his department has had a little over a year to try to sort things out at Silverdale, said the construction of a $20 million jail annex will help. He said an additional facility may come after that.
The sheriff said, "The new facility will take a lot of pressure on how we house those inmates out there."
Sheriff Hammond said he is 70 officers short at the jail. He said, "We have people every week who say, 'That's it for me.' "
The hiring standards for the Sheriff's Office are much more restrictive than for the private firm that operated Silverdale for many years, he stated.
He said the defund the police movement has also caused hiring problems.
Sheriff Hammond said said the department is installing close to $6 million in technology at Silverdale that will boost security.
An improvement in the processing of inmates will include use of a $200,000 body scanner "not unlike one that you go through at the airport." He said it was donated by a vendor.
The sheriff said it is a complicated process to decide where inmates are held at the 25-acre fenced compound.
He said, "We do our best to separate gangs and by the crimes they committed. We're trying to keep all the bad guys away from the worst guys."
The sheriff said said 450 of the some 1,100 inmates are pre-trials - "some all way back to 2015. These are hard-core felons. They are the roughest of the rough, the baddest of the bad. These are not exactly Sunday school teachers."
He said the jail staff conducts weekly sweeps of the jail. He said shanks can be made of "every piece of material you can imagine."
The department recently introduced the first drug dog for full-time duty, he said. "We are constantly looking for drugs." A private foundation provided the dog, which carried a $25,000 cost.
Sheriff Hammond said two federal judges toured the facility and agreed that federal inmates can again stay there.
He said, "I'm somewhat disappointed with the district attorney. I don't know that he has ever come out to the facility." He said they have had few visits to each other's office.
Sheriff Hammond said it was a “slap in the face” when DA Neal Pinkston withdrew his request for the HCSO to investigate the questionable traffic stop in Collegedale.
DA Pinkston said, “It was the Chattanooga Clergy for Justice that made that request in a letter to me, saying it was 'based on a review of HCSO current use of force policies and Coty Wamp’s biased public statements in support of law enforcement.' Therefore, we feel that the HCSO cannot complete an unbiased investigation of the incident.
"So I honored their concerns by withdrawing my request for the HCSO to investigate that traffic stop, and include it with my request for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate that incident, along with the Silverdale Detention Center.”