Jailers let ‘attacker’ in women’s cells, leading to sex assaults in TN, suit says
UPDATE: This story has been updated with a statement released from the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office in Tennessee.
One of several men held in the women’s facility of a Tennessee jail due to overcrowding was allowed to escape his cell and enter female cells, where he sexually assaulted two women without repercussion, according to a federal lawsuit.
On-duty corrections officers at the Shelby County Jail in Memphis on Nov. 12, 2024, are accused of letting him leave what’s described as an easily escapable cell, a complaint filed in the Western District of Tennessee says.
One of the officers in charge of monitoring the cell, called “cell 6,” is accused of either opening the door for the man or letting him open it himself, the complaint says.
The cell did not lock or was not secure enough to stop detainees from escaping, according to the filing.
Other officers did not stop the man as he went into nearby female cells, the complaint says. They are accused of standing by during his escape.
Inside women’s cells, he put “a cover over his head, as to hide his face and appearance,” according to the filing.
Then he “forcibly” sexually assaulted two women, who are named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the complaint says.
The women are suing Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr., chief jailer Kirk Fields and multiple corrections officers on claims including violations of their constitutional rights to be protected from violence by other inmates, which falls under the Eighth Amendment.
Attorneys representing them wrote in the filing that “On the date of the attack, Defendants do not stop the attacker, report the incident, or otherwise take any action to address the instances of sexual assault.”
In a news release shared to X the evening of Nov. 12, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office described the litigation as a “stunning, reckless, federal lawsuit” with inaccurate details.
“The truth is that both women were in the custody of the Shelby County Correction Center at the time, which is operated by the mayor, not the sheriff,” the sheriff’s office said. “That facility, known as the penal farm, houses men and women prisoners who have been sentenced to that facility.”
“It is apparent that the attorneys did not even verify with their clients the location of the alleged assault. The employees named in the litigation are employees of the mayor’s administration at the Shelby County Correction Center,” the sheriff’s office added.
The statement continued by noting Bonner and Fields have been wrongly named in the filing and will be “demanding an apology and immediate dismissal from the suit and all allegations pertaining to them, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, and the jail.”
On average, the county jail holds about 2,600 men and women inside its facilities, according to the sheriff’s office.
The lawsuit says as a result of overcrowding, multiple men were kept inside cell 6 at the women’s facility when the plaintiffs were sexually assaulted.
Overcrowding persists a year later, the sheriff told WREG-TV on Nov. 5. In response to the issue, 300 male detainees will be transferred from the men’s facility to other jails in middle and western Tennessee. The transfers are expected to happen within weeks.
“We finally worked it out with the state where they would take 300 of our pre-trial inmates,” Bonner said in an interview with the TV station. “Our problem is and this is what many people don’t realize, we are a pre-trial facility, so we can’t put pre-trial inmates with convicted inmates. That’s been a problem over the last few weeks about moving prisoners to various locations.”
The sexual assaults complaint says that in addition to overcrowding, the jail has been plagued with issues in the last decade, including “staff corruption,” major staff shortages, failures to protect detainees from violence, and “ongoing infrastructure failures.”
As for infrastructure, the complaint, citing reports from 2024, says about 100 doors inside the jail were found to not work.
According to the complaint, jail staff knew the door to cell #6 was faulty, while they also were aware of incidents of physical and sexual violence inside the jail, but did nothing to fix the issue, the complaint argues.
“Through the Shelby County Jail’s practices and policies, Defendants have subjected Plaintiffs to a substantial risk of serious harm and deprived them of the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities and basic human dignity by exposing them to a dangerous male inmate (the attacker),” the complaint says.
The women have endured physical pain, mental anguish, depression and other damages as the result of the sexual assaults, according to the filing.
They are demanding a jury trial and seek an unspecified amount in damages.
This story was originally published November 12, 2025 at 4:14 PM.
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