Tewksbury Hospital, where Lindsay Clancy awaits her fate, has sordid history of violence

As Lindsay Clancy awaits next steps in her triple-murder case after a deadlocked jury led to a mistrial Friday, she does so from a decrepit psychiatric hospital with a history of violence.Tewksbury Hospital — the state-run Massachusetts facility that Clancy has called home since she allegedly strangled her young children three years ago — deals with so many out-of-control patients and visitors that at one point, its security team was granted the controversial right to use batons and handcuffs on patients.In April of this year, a visitor was arrested for attacking a pregnant staffer who tried to intervene when he punched a window and threatened to kill workers — one of at least three incidents where employees were assaulted on the job that month alone, the Boston Globe reported.In another incident, one patient lunged at another with a sharp object, the Globe reported.“The fact of the matter remains, it’s still an unsafe environment,” Jean Calvert-McClure, Department of Mental Health chapter president for the workers union SEIU509, told the Globe.Police and the hospital’s Public Safety Department responded to more than 500 calls for assaults in 2025, according to the outlet.The violence was so severe that the hospital last year allowed its security to use pepper gel, handcuffs, and batons on patients — but the plan, according to the Globe, was short-lived.The hospital was banned in April from using any defensive tactical gear in clinical areas.Instead, staffers have been instructed to call police in the case of emergency.Employees told the Globe the hospital is flooded with unmedicated, untreated and sometimes dangerous patients from the criminal justice system.The 370-bed hospital provides “comprehensive treatment, care, and comfort to adults with medical and/or mental illnesses,” according to Mass.gov.Tewksbury has a history of unsanitary conditions as well.A May report by the Globe detailed how several of the buildings on the 172-year-old hosp...