Massachusetts Prisons Should Ban Exercise Equipment, Says Former Corrections Officer Disabled After Attack

By Beth Germano, CBS Boston

January 24, 2024

BOSTON - For the first time a former Massachusetts corrections officer is speaking publicly about a brutal beating at the hands of an inmate that has left him permanently disabled.

Matt Tidman was before a legislative committee considering a bill that would ban exercise equipment and free weights from the state's medium and maximum security prisons. "I hope it doesn't happen to anybody else," Tidman told the legislators. "Nobody deserves this, my family doesn't deserve this."

He's trying to rebuild his life after the attack August 31, 2022, at MCI Shirley having to learn to walk and talk again after he was knocked unconscious, on life support and in a coma for several weeks. He's missing part of his skull and is deaf in right ear, blind in his right eye.

Former Massachusetts corrections officer Matt Tidman/CBS Boston

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