Inmate sends his fingertip to Indiana newspaper to protest jail conditions, editor says

What an Indiana newspaper editor received in the mail brings a whole new meaning to the term “story tip.”

An inmate at Madison County Jail in Indiana mailed the tip of his middle finger to the editor of The Herald Bulletin, the newspaper reported. Michael McCune, being held in the jail on an attempted murder charge, mailed the severed fingertip as a way to protest the jail’s living conditions.

“I am of sound mind,” McCune, 60, wrote the newspaper. “I removed this fingertip to bring about changes of the oppressive conditions that exist here.”

McCune said inmates are abused by the staff, who falsify conduct records, serve them cold food and make them sleep on the floor, according to The Herald Bulletin.

The county’s sheriff, Scott Mellinger, said McCune likely took out the blade from a razor to sever his finger, according to RTV6.

“We always collect and count them, but possibly officers did not notice one of the razors was missing a blade” Mellinger told the station. “He told us he used a string to tie off his finger at the knuckle so as to mitigate bleeding.”

McCune had surgery last week “to stave off the threat of infection,” Mellinger told WTHR.

McCune is no longer at the Madison County Jail and has been transferred to the Pendleton Correctional Facility, WTHR reported.

After cutting off his fingertip and mailing it May 21, he bragged about it on a monitored phone call a week later, the Herald Bulletin reported.

Responding to McCune’s allegations, the sheriff said the 36-year-old jail has been overcapacity since the 1990s and it is “severely understaffed,” according to RTV6.

McCune is accused of stabbing a man 13 times at a birthday party earlier this year, WTHR reported.

This story was originally published June 8, 2020 at 12:35 PM with the headline "Inmate sends his fingertip to Indiana newspaper to protest jail conditions, editor says."