A former Loudon County corrections officer has been sentenced to a stretch behind bars for assaulting a detainee over a dinner tray fiasco. Brian J. Phillips, 32, of Georgia, was handed down a five-month prison sentence on March 4 by US District Judge Thomas A. Varlan, as confirmed by the US Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of Tennessee.
Phillips, who waived his right to an indictment by a Federal Grand Jury, fessed up to a charge of using excessive force under the guise of law; besides the prison term, he's looking at two years of supervised release once he's out, a plea deal filed with the court showed which showed the details of the case including at the time of the January 25, 2021, incident, and Phillips was a correctional officer in Loudon County, monitoring a pod where the attack on detainee E.H. happened over a prohibited second helping of dinner.
The Justice Department's rundown of the crime painted a grim portrait of Phillips's misconduct: After E.H. grabbed an illicit second tray of food, Phillips swatted it away, causing a mess, snatched at E.H.'s wrist, and then violently hip-slammed him into the concrete, leaving him with a fractured skull and unconscious, all for trying to snag an extra meal.
The case unraveled after an investigation by the FBI with the heavy lifting by US Attorneys William A. Roach, Jr., and Jeremy S. Dykes, also kudos are due to the swift action of US Attorney Francis M. Hamilton, III, of the Eastern District of Tennessee and Special Agent in Charge Joseph E. Carrico of the FBI – both brought the light onto this display of abuse within the correctional system a system that's supposed to temper justice with discipline, not brutality.
The sentencing not only underscores the justice system's determination to hold law enforcement officers accountable but also signals a clear-cut stance against the abuse under the color of authority.
