Lockdown enters second week
Prisons across the state remain on lock down this weekend as officials continue to investigate a series of gangrelated fights that broke out at six prisons last weekend, resulting in injuries to several dozen inmates and the death of one inmate.
The lockdown will remain in effect “for the foreseeable future” until Department of Corrections officials determine it's safe to resume normal operations, Matt Elliott, a spokesman for the agency, said Friday.
The fights started Sept. 14. They took place at Northeast Oklahoma Correctional Center, Lawton Correctional Facility, North Fork Correctional Center, Dick Conn er Correctional Center, Mack Alford Correctional Center and William S. Key Correctional Center.
Corrections officials said the violence appeared to be related to a dispute between two prison gangs, as well as racial tensions. Officials have not released the names of the gangs involved.
Three dozen inmates were taken to hospitals for treatment. Several c orrectional officers also were injured. Two inmates, Frankie Stutchman and Jared Cruce, remained hospitalized Friday morning, Elliott said.
Chad Burns, a 27-year-old inmate at Dick Conner, died. He was serving a 15- year sentence out of Tulsa County for convictions that included burglary, robbery, firearms possession and assault with a dangerous weapon, the Department of Corrections reported.
After the fights, a number of inmates were moved to other facilities, either for their own protection or because they were involved, Elliott said. He said what happened last weekend was an“unusual occurrence.”
“Anytime you have something like that happen where there' s so many inmates involved at so many different facilities, literally from one corner of the state to the next, that's alarming and that required that we take aggressive action, and that's exactly what we did,” Elliott said. “Fortunately, that appears to have stopped the violence f rom spreading, but i t was definitely a unique moment in the agency's history.”
Elli ott said he's not sure how many times the agency has implemented a statewide lockdown, but it's rare.
During a lock down, inmates are kept in their cells. Staff bring them food, water and medicine and provide access to showers.
Visitation is canceled during the lockdown.
“A l ot of i nmates' f amilies are upset about that, and we understand,” Elliott said. “This isn't something that we take lightly. ... We're doing this to keep people safe.”
Officials are still i nvestigating how the inmates who were involved in the fights last weekend were able to coordinate, but generally cellphones play a big role in orchestrating things like that, Elliott said.
“That's why they're one of our biggest security threats,” he said. “Inmates' access to cellphones make things like this so much easier for them to pull off. And it's not just a risk to other inmates. They can use cellphones to order hits on people outside prison walls.”
Cellphones are smuggled into prison sin a variety of ways. Sometimes people throw phones over the fences or try to bring them in during visitation, Elliott said. Sometimes staff are involved, and the Department of Corrections takes aggressive action against those individuals, Elliott said. Earlier this year, authorities arrested a woman who they said used a T-shirt gun to launch drugs, cellphones and other contraband over a prison fence.
The Department of Corrections seizes thousands of cellphones a year, Elliott said. As of Aug. 31, officials had seized 4,713 cellphones so far this year.
“It' s a flood that we' re trying to stem, and it' s a problem that every prison in the country faces, not just ours,” Elliott said.