As many of you may have heard, two officers were assaulted yesterday at MCC. 

The incident occurred shortly after 9 a.m. when an offender attacked an officer, punching him in the head and face, and later assaulting a second officer as he was providing backup.

After conversations with members close to the situation, we are investigating concerns that the offender may have been misclassified.

Eric Smith, the Business Representative at MCC, responded to the hospital shortly after the assault to provide support for the injured members.

I have spoken to Officer Crouse, who fortunately did not have any broken bones in his hand, but still has some recovery ahead of him. I understand the other officer does not have any broken bones either, but we’ve been unable to personally connect as he had follow-up medical appointments today.

We all know the safety conditions at DOC facilities around the state are unsustainable and these assaults are a stark reminder of that.

We know what needs to be done. We need a staffing model audit, we need to improve the retirement system, and we need the Department and legislators to take our safety concerns seriously.

We are in a public sector environment where we rely on the State Legislature to provide adequate funding to address all of these issues. We need to hold our lawmakers accountable to provide funding to the DOC to fix these problems.

Without adequate State funding for our prisons, we will continue to have incidents of this nature.

Thank you for everything you do. We are committed to continuing to find ways to use our strength in numbers to find real solutions.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to call me at 206-441-4860 ext. 1264 or email me at [email protected]