Allegations of abuse at Madison Parish Correctional Center

TALLULAH, La. (KNOE) - Some families say their loved ones are in the Madison Parish Correctional Center being beaten, stabbed, and burned. They also say their loved ones are not receiving the medical attention they need.

Colleen Griggs says she fears one day she’s going to get a phone call saying her son is dead. She says he told her he was burned on Tuesday and now he’s in a holding cell not receiving medical attention.

“Someone threw hot liquid on him and, my God, it looks like my son has almost been cooked to death. I want him in the hospital because he needs medical treatment,” Griggs said.

Griggs’ son is Donnie Sanders Jr. and she says he was on probation for possession of marijuana when he was caught with a firearm. That’s when he was placed in jail.

Soon after, he was transferred from Concordia Parish to the Madison Parish Correctional Center. Since that transfer, he has been burned, stabbed, and hit in the head with a pipe.

“I fear that I’m going to get a call that someone has killed him,” Griggs said. “I just want them to move him, it’s as simple as that. The judge ordered that he gets into any class the state offers because of his time, but they don’t offer anything in Tallulah.”

Dimish Slaughter is the fiance of Madison Parish Correctional Center inmate Charles Washington.

She says Washington’s family also fears for his life and when he came up for parole he was attacked.

“He was jumped by some prison guards,” she said.

Slaughter says Washington told her he has also been stabbed.

“He says, ‘I got stabbed in the head,’ and I said, ‘In the head?’ He was like, ‘We get treated like we’re not human,” said Slaughter.

KNOE spoke to the warden at the Madison Parish Correction Center, Chris Stinson, and he refused to comment.

We asked him to contact owner Jack Verner to respond to these allegations, but we haven’t heard back from him.

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