Jailhouse Tattoo Artist Starts Small Fire

  A clever and creative inmate in Rhea County inks himself another felony charge. Ricky Parker, Junior caused a small fire inside the jail while making tattoos two Saturday's ago.

   Inmates and deputies tell us that jailhouse tattoos are common in jails and prisons, have been for generations. Inmates such as Parker find several ways to make the ink and create the heat.

    But Parker's side job inside the jail will cost him a felony charge of reckless endangerment. Deputies say two weekends ago, Parker took the cord of a television, plugged it into an outlet and then skinned the wires and touched them together to create heat and ink. The practice is known as "pop-lighting."

    Typically, tattoo artists burn styrofoam cups, upside down to capture the smoke to capture the smoke. That soot combined with toothpaste creates the ink for tattoos like the ones Steven Daniels has collected over the last ten years.

Daniels told us all of these came from five or six prisons Tennessee prisons he has been in. But Parker's cup caught fire, smoked up a jail cell and set off a smoke detector. We asked Daniels if Parker's artwork was worth the new felony charge.

       Daniels said, "Wasn't too smart, everybody makes mistakes in their own choice. I hate that he done it to himself. He knows the consequences."

    The inmates and Rhea County jail staffers tell us they walk through every ten minutes, but tattoo artists like Parker work quickly. Parker was in on drug charges, but has an extensive history. Because of that, jail officials say the reckless endangerment charge could come with a longer sentence range than the one to two years.

 Click here to watch the video.