Max-security inmates were ‘ready for war’
Pepper spray used to restore calm
Prisoners wielding makeshift weapons were “ready for war” during a three-hour riot Monday night at the state’s maximum-security prison in Shirley that ended when cops pepper-sprayed the rowdy inmates, a top state official said yesterday.
“They were getting ready for war,” Secretary of Public Safety and Security Daniel Bennett told reporters. “If you look at the videotape, you had 47 inmates ready to take on the COs (correctional officers), and they had armed themselves with knives, bats and iron pipes. They were going to go after the COs.”
Bennett said the melee was sparked by a fight that broke out between prisoners in separate units at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center. When prisoners refused to return to their cells in one unit, prison guards backed out “to make sure there was no violence,” Bennett said.
The inmates quickly began assembling weapons by breaking apart tables and computers.
“Some of them had been convicted of armed assault with intent to murder before, some of them had been convicted of murder, some second-degree murder, and they got ready for the COs,” Bennett said. Prison guards, the state police and other law enforcement, including police dogs, subdued them by using pepper spray, after which inmates started to surrender in “groups of five at a time,” he said.
“They could hear the dogs barking and then they gave in,” Bennett said.
The entire episode lasted about three hours. Bennett declined to identify any of the inmates who were involved. He said no one was seriously hurt, but noted there were some “minor injuries.”
The state’s Department of Correction released grainy footage — in order to protect the identity of inmates — which showed the pandemonium.
The footage shows a prisoner holding what appears to be a fire extinguisher and spraying it, while another inmate later comes into view and appears to be holding a computer tower that he smashes on the floor.
Another inmate is caught on camera repeatedly striking a cell door with some kind of long object.
“Sprinkler heads were broken off, camera systems were destroyed, the computer system in the unit was destroyed along with extensive damage to much of the remaining parts of the unit,” said DOC spokesman Christopher M. Fallon. “Inmates utilized fire extinguishers and other makeshift weapons in order to destroy furnishings, windows, etc.”
An estimate of the cost of the damage was not immediately available. DOC has said the rioting inmates could face disciplinary measures and criminal charges.