By RONNIE ELLIS
FRANKFORT — Inmate displeasure over a modified lockdown and a controlled movement schedule led to an August 21 riot by 1,200 angry inmates at Northpoint Training Center near Danville – not racial tensions or unhappiness over poor food quality.
That is the conclusion of a Critical Incident Review Team and the Department of Corrections which investigated the cause of the disturbance which destroyed five buildings and led to the hospitalization of eight inmates and injuries to eight staff, none of them life-threatening.
Justice Cabinet Secretary J. Michael Brown said he is “absolutely convinced” that a loss of freedom of movement at the medium security, dormitory style facility caused inmate frustrations to boil over. Some staff at the facility told legislative committees the riot was caused by poor food quality – they referred to the food as “basically slop.”
Both the review team’s report and Brown said interviews with more than 120 inmates and 70 staff contradict that premise. Instead, the review points to measures to ease tensions after a young Hispanic inmate who had recently arrived at Northpoint was the victim of theft by a black and a white inmate. Prison officials learned of an altercation between approximately 10 Hispanic inmates apparently tried to retrieve the stolen canteen items and impose their own prison yard justice, according to Brown.
Following that incident, prison officials implemented a “modified lockdown” restricting access between dormitories and to program and recreational facilities. Within the living areas, inmates were free to move around and use televisions and common areas. Some inmates involved in the original altercation were segregated while others asked for protective custody, Brown said.
But prison officials decided to implement a “controlled movement schedule” and posted announcements it would begin the following week. On Friday, Aug. 21, around 6:30 p.m. the fire alarm in dormitory 6 sounded followed within a half hour by an alarm in dormitory 3. Inmates had set fire to trash containers in both. Inmates were evacuated and at one point guards in a tower fired warning shots over some inmates heads who had ventured to close to the fence or secure areas, according to Department of Corrections Commissioner LaDonna Thompson.
Eventually the fire spread to other dormitories, the canteen and food service department, ultimately destroying five non-dormitory buildings and damaging all the dorms.
More than 700 inmates had to be transferred to other facilities where they remain pending repairs to the Northpoint facility. Thompson said DOC has been able to “absorb” those inmates without straining the receiving prisons as other prisoners are released on schedule. But it prompted DOC to slow down transfer of state inmates from county jails although that process has resumed normal pace, she said.
Brown said at least 150 inmates had been identified as participating in the disturbance. He said any prosecutions will be handled by local commonwealth and county attorneys. He also noted that not all inmates engaged in the riot – inmates from dorm 5 gathered on the ground in the courtyard “where they could be seen and make clear they didn’t participate at all.”
Brown repeatedly pointed out that Northpoint was originally designed as a mental health facility and the dormitory plans don’t allow some usual prison security restrictions. But to rebuild the system on an updated design would be “prohibitively expensive and I just got a memo which said we’ve got to do with 6 percent less.” Gov. Steve Beshear has asked state agencies to find ways to cut 6 percent from their current budgets because of another state revenue shortfall.
He and Thompson said some inmates complained about the food quality but did not believe it contributed to the riot. Brown said a private contractor, Aramark, serves 3,600 meals a day at the facility which was averaging only a bout six complaints a month. He said any institutional food service typically draws complaints about food. Thompson said the meals meet nutritional guidelines but are “a little bland” because it is not prepared with some condiments and uses less salt.
She said it would cost the state about $5 million more to take over the food service and there are no plans to do so.
RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow CNHI News Service stories on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cnhifrankfort.
