Union official blames staffing shortage for guard death

SMYRNA, DEL. >> The killing of a guard during an inmate uprising at Delaware’s largest prison this week was entirely preventable, according to a correctional officers’ union leader who blamed state officials for ignoring chronic staffing shortages that put prison workers at greater risk.

Sgt. Steven Floyd, 47, was found dead early Thursday after a nearly 20-hour hostage standoff at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center near Smyrna. Late Friday, the Delaware Division of Forensic Science completed an autopsy and said Floyd’s death was homicide by trauma.

On Friday, Floyd was posthumously awarded a promotion to lieutenant and the Medal of Valor, the department’s highest honor.

Floyd was one of four staff members, including a female counselor, taken hostage Wednesday after inmates in a unit holding about 120 inmates ambushed him and forced him into a closet.

Inmates released two hostages before a tactical team used a backhoe to breach the building and rescue the woman.

“If there had been a correct amount of staffing for a maximum-security building, the inmates would not have been able to overpower the officers, take control of the building and murder Sergeant Floyd,” said Geoff Klopp, president of the Correctional Officers Association of Delaware.

“Bottom line is, you cannot run daily operations of that building with three corrections officers safely,” he said.

The problem is not unique to Delaware, observers say.

For years, many states have struggled to attract and retain correctional officers, largely because they are woefully underpaid, said David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project.

“The correction officers are really the backbone of every prison ... if you don’t have enough officers, really every aspect of prison operations breaks down,” he said.

In some states, prisons are competing for workers with Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, Fathi said. In Nebraska, the state prison has trouble keeping correctional officers because its county jails will pay them much more, he said.