Rioting Inmates Destroy Housing Units

OLNEY SPRINGS, Colo. – The Colorado Department of Corrections recently took temporary control of a privately-run prison to stop a riot that left a 300-bed section of the facility uninhabitable.

As many as 500 inmates rioted and set fires in two housing structures at the 1,200-bed Crowley County Correctional Facility, which is owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Part of the administration building also suffered heavy damage.

Thirteen inmates needed hospital treatment–including one for stab wounds–but no one was killed in the July 20 incident. Colorado Gov. Bill Owens toured the charred facility shortly after the riot. He praised the prison staff and DOC teams for quelling the riot, which lasted five hours.

The incident began at 7:30 p.m. as an act of nonviolent disobedience, when between 100 and 150 inmates refused to return to their cells from the outdoor recreational yard. Inmates later ran from the living units to the yard. Correctional officers repeatedly ordered inmates to return to their cells, but the inmates refused.

Prison officials called the Department of Corrections soon after the riot broke out. At about 9:30 p.m., a 10-member Special Operations Response Team arrived from the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility, seven miles away. More DOC officials arrived shortly thereafter.

A CCA officer trainee reported that while she was locked in the central control room, inmates pounded the walls and windows with weightlifting equipment. When inmates broke through a control-room door, she and another officer escaped through a hatch to the roof.

At about 10 p.m., the DOC took control away from CCA. By then, as many as 500 of the medium-security prison’s 1,100-plus inmates had joined in the melee. Inmates cheered and whistled in response to the firing of rubber bullets.

Rioters also set fire to mattresses and wooden doors. Officials said there were at least three distinct fires, and that one housing structure was completely charred. “It was really massive and shocking in terms of the amount of destruction,” said Alison Morgan, spokeswoman for the Colorado DOC.

At press time, investigators had yet to determine what caused the riot, but newspaper reports speculate that inmates recently brought in from Washington state were upset at the loss of conjugal visits. About 200 Washington inmates were transferred to Crowley in the month before the riot.