Probe needed at state prison after attacks

Would you want to be a guard at the State Correctional Institution at Somerset?

Given the recent history of that facility, we would suspect that applicants for openings are few, and the state Department of Corrections should be launching a full investigation of all safety procedures there.

This past week, the prison was on lockdown for several days after an inmate reportedly attacked a guard.

Canie Griffith, 30, was charged with aggravated assault, assault by a prisoner and simple assault for an incident that occurred on May 18.

The guard spent a weekend in the hospital, DOC Press Secretary Amy Worden told reporter Randy Griffith.

The guard was attacked while sitting at a desk in one of SCI-Somerset’s housing areas, the DOC said.

Griffith, who was serving a lengthy sentence after pleading guilty to robbery and other charges in 2016, was moved to SCI-Huntingdon after the incident to await arraignment.

This was the latest in a string of attacks and other troubling incidents at SCI-Somerset:

— On Feb. 15, corrections officer Mark Baserman suffered fatal injuries when he was attacked while working in a “day room” at the prison. Inmate Paul Kendrick, 22, of Pittsburgh — who was already serving a life sentence for a fatal shooting — has been charged with murder for allegedly beating and kicking Baserman and another guard. Baserman died several days later at Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center.

— On Jan. 9, inmate Joshua Steven Perry, 25, was found slain in his cell, and cellmate Dale Michael Wakefield, 25, is headed to trial, accused of murder. Guards found Perry with his hands tied behind his back and with a bed sheet wrapped around his throat. Wakefield was already in jail for life for a 2013 Bucks County stabbing homicide.

— On Dec. 3, a corrections officer was attacked by an SCISomerset inmate who was having treatment at Somerset Hospital, according to the Somerset Borough Police Department. William Amos Cramer, 26, was charged with attempted homicide, assault by a prisoner, assault by a life prisoner, aggravated assault and simple assault. He was accused of going after an officer with a straight razor, with the intention “to slit the throat of the officer,” borough police said.

Also in December, an SCISomerset guard was charged with smuggling drugs into the prison. Shawn Kirkpatrick, 39, of Carrolltown, faces felony counts of drug possession, corrupt organization, criminal attempt to smuggle contraband and criminal conspiracy to smuggle contraband, as Patrick Buchnowski reported. Police said they searched his home and found a “facsimile pipe bomb, booby trap that contained a firing pin” and “17 prepackaged plastic bags of marijuana.”

Our question to the state Department of Corrections and corrections Secretary John Wetzel: What the hell is going on at the Somerset prison?

Every place of incarceration has troubles from time to time.

Such facilities are not typically housing choir boys and Sunday school teachers.

The SCI system is home to hardened criminals, many of whom are willing to continue beating and killing — especially those facing little chance of release because of past misdeeds.

SCI-Somerset was home to 2,335 inmates as of March, according to the latest figures available.

Although that is 5 percent above capacity, Worden said guards are not at greater risk because of the number of inmates there.

“There is a difference between optimum capacity and emergency capacity on the far end,” she said following the latest attack. “It is a range. Prisons like to be flexible because people are coming and going every day.

“It absolutely did not contribute to this situation.”

Well, if overcrowding is not the culprit, what is?

Safety measures? Staff and officer training? Procedures for inmates?

We call on Wetzel and the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to launch a full investigation of the leadership and procedures in place at SCISomerset.

The results of that probe must be shared with the public, along with steps to be taken to reduce the risk to guards, staff and even those incarcerated there.

— The Tribune-Democrat, Johnstown, The Associated Press