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Disagreement over commissary items results in jailhouse battery

An inmate in the Greene County Jail is facing additional criminal charges for allegedly battering another inmate more than once because the inmate refused to give him commissary items. The deputy investigating the accusations reported two of the incidents were caught on video surveillance.    

Christopher Wade

Christopher Wade

Christopher Shawn Wade, 37, of Heltonville, is currently incarcerated in the Lawrence County Jail but in mid-April, he was in the Greene County Jail.

On April 16, Deputy Jordan Gooding of the Greene County Sheriff’s Department was called in to investigate another inmate’s claims that Wade had battered him.

When Gooding talked to the inmate, the inmate explained that Wade had been going around to other inmates and asking them for commissary items if he snorted up a pack of salt. The inmate said when Wade asked him, he told Wade he was “a retard” and that he wasn’t going to give him anything. He said this made Wade mad.

According to Gooding, the inmate said that later on when he was standing in the doorway to his own cell, Wade walked over to him and kicked him. The inmate told Gooding about other incidents including another one over commissary items when the inmate also refused to give Wade anything and Wade reacted by throwing a hairbrush at him. The inmate also claimed Wade had hit him on an earlier day when the inmate was standing near the microwave.

Gooding reviewed the jail’s video surveillance and reported the hairbrush throwing incident and the kicking incident were both caught on video.

Gooding said video shows Wade threw a hairbrush at the inmate, striking him in the face. The inmate then walked away though Wade continued to talk to the inmate and walked into a shower where he took his shirt off and appeared to be trying to get the inmate to go into the shower to fight.

In a probable cause affidavit, Gooding also described the details of the kicking incident.

Wade is scheduled to appear in Greene Superior Court in mid-June for an initial hearing when he will be formally charged with two counts of battery, both as Class A misdemeanors.