Some Prisoners Were Celebrating Hitler's Birthday
A lockdown remained in effect Monday at a federal penitentiary after a massive fight involving 150-200 prisoners broke out in the maximum security prison.
Two inmates died and at least five others were rushed to the hospital with injuries.
The U.S. Penitentiary, where the fights erupted, is the second-most secure of three federal prisons located south of Florence. The most secure is Supermax.
The U.S. Penitentiary houses only male inmates and is in the same complex as Supermax, the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution and a minimum-security camp.
The violence erupted Sunday at about 12:30 p.m. in the recreation yard when a group of white supremacist inmates began openly celebrating Adolph Hitler's birthday and started yelling slurs at African Americans, said Dr. Dorothy Twellman, coroner for Fremont County.
"They started yelling foul things toward the African American folks on the other side of the yard and they kind of came at each other and started throwing things and it just escalated," Twellman told 7NEWS.
Soon, inmates armed with various homemade weapons including rocks, sharpened metal, plastic, and wood began battling it out in the recreational area, prison officials said.
"As groups of inmates engaged one another, correctional officers activated the verbal warning system and discharged multiple tactical distraction rounds. In response to continued escalating violence, the tower officers discharged lethal munitions," said Leann LaRiva, spokeswoman for the U.S. Penitentiary in a news release.
"I'm understanding it could be upwards to 300 or 400 rounds shot on the yard," State Rep. Liane "Buffie" McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, said. "That's an amazing amount of firepower."
She told the Denver Post that the guards in the three towers fired every round of lethal and non-lethal ammunition at their disposal.
Twellman described the riots as an "uncontrollable mob scene." She viewed surveillance video of the riots with prison officials on Monday and said she was surprised with the scope of the brawl.
In the video, you can see that 400 men were in the recreation yard and half were involved in a series of fights that started and stopped and dragged on for half-hour, Twellman said. Prison officials said the riot lasted several hours.
Guards tried using flash rounds of gas but resorted to firepower when gas didn't disperse the crowd.
The two inmates who were shot by guards and died were Brian Scott Kubik and Phillip Lee Hooker, authorities said Monday.
Kubik, 40, was serving a 180-month federal sentence for being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm. Hooker, 41, was serving a 25-year sentence for armed robbery. Both were shot in the upper back. Their autopsy results are pending.
Kubik was white and Hooker was black.
No prison employees were injured.
"Staff responded quickly and effectively to the disturbance and did an excellent job of bringing the situation under control," LaRiva said. "The quick and effective response by staff prevented further loss of life. At no time was the safety of the community in jeopardy."
For a time the total federal prison campus was on lockdown, with off-duty officers from the other three prisons on the four-prison campus being called into quell the riot, McFayden told the DenverPost.
The FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons are investigating. The lockdown at the U.S. Penitentiary and its 888 inmates continues as FBI agents comb through the recreation yard collecting evidence.
The prison has a history of violent outbursts. In January 2007, seven correctional officers at the U.S. Penitentiary were injured in an inmate disturbance.
In 1999, inmate Joey Estrella was found strangled, with his neck slashed and some of his organs removed. Two cousins who shared his cell were charged with first-degree murder. One was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The trial of the second got under way last week.
Nearby, Supermax houses some of the nation's most notorious criminals including the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, shoe bomber Richard Reid and World Trade Center bomber Mohammed A. Salameh.
McFadyen said she's complained of staffing issues at the U.S. Penitentiary before.
"It is my understanding that off-duty correctional officers from other institutions were called in, which makes this very unusual. It tells me how dangerous this situation was," she said.
Sen. Ken Salazar and Sen. Wayne Allard toured the campus in 2007 after union officials representing correctional officers said that funding problems have left the prison unable to staff necessary positions.
"I've already been told everything's OK. I sense there's a problem there," Salazar said Monday.
He wants to introduce legislation mandating an independent review by the General Accounting Office of any security issue at the prison.
What are yalls thoughts? Bad aiming, or blindly firing off rounds?
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Don't beat me TS, I think this is in the right section. If not, I'll take 40 lashes.
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