03/28/2024
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A fight that broke out in the Bladen County Jail on Tuesday, February 13, 2017, resulted in one person being transported to the hospital for treatment.

Bladen County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Larry Guyton said that at about 12:30 a.m. Jamie Harold Nance, 33, of Bladenboro, was arrested for communicating threats, harassing phone calls, domestic criminal trespass, violating a domestic violence protective order and he also had a warrant for his arrest for failing to appear in court in Robeson County.

“He was booked into the jail and placed in a group cell,” said Guyton. He said Nance was sharing a cell with two other men — Marcus Jermil Blake, 33, of 111 Ranch Circle, Kelly, and David Wilson Gilchrist, 22, of 208 David Street, Elizabethtown.

Guyton said Nance had not been in the cell for more than about 10 minutes when the jailer watching the cameras saw a fight start in Nance’s cell. Guyton said she alerted two other jailers who went back to the cell and removed Nance.

Guyton said Nance was bleeding from the head where he had struck his head on a bunk. Blake and Gilchrist are both charged with assault inflicting serious injury.

Guyton said the cause of the fight is unknown at this time. “None of the three would cooperate with the investigators. Nance would not say what the fight was about, neither would the other two. We do know that Nance was being verbally abusive with the jailers when he was booked,” said Guyton.

When asked if any type of a weapon was involved, Guyton said no. He said it was a fist fight and Nance fell and struck his head on the edge of one of the bunk beds in the cell. “He was transported and treated for that,” said Guyton. He said, once Nance was returned to the jail, he was not placed back into that particular cell.

When asked about housing inmates together, Guyton said the county tries to keep inmates that have “bad blood between them” or if they have gang affiliations that have conflicts separated. He said in this situation, there was no known conflict between the three men until the fight erupted.

“We’ve got some isolation cells, but we use them for suicide risks or disciplinary reasons or for a higher risk like a murder suspect,” said Guyton.

Currently, the Bladen County Jail is about 52 years old and has 65 cells. The group cells can hold up to 8 people, said Guyton. The new jail will have 270 cells that will hold either two men or one man. When the jail reaches capacity, it costs an average of $50 per day to house someone at another facility.

Guyton estimated that an emergency room visit costs a minimum of about $200, then with the added costs of stitches and x-rays, it could push the bill for treatment of injuries to $500. “Medical expenses in the jail are the largest expense we have. As long as they are in our custody, we’re responsible for their care,” said Guyton.

He said the county does everything it can to prevent incidents like this from occurring, but when you place that many people in one place for a long period of time, someone is going to become agitated with a fellow inmate at some point.

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