Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 8, 1994 TAG: 9411080126
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Corrections Department Director Ronald Angelone said he still cannot say whether the disturbance was triggered by Gov. George Allen's plan to abolish parole.
``I have not got the final report,'' Angelone said.
He said that while some might say the no-parole plan prompted the uprising, ``I think it was an excuse to do the damage they wanted to do.''
Inmates started fires, flooded toilets, flipped ice-making machines, set off sprinklers, broke windows and tore down an interior fence. Damage was estimated at more than $100,000.
Current inmates still will be eligible for parole after Allen's plan takes effect Jan. 1, and Angelone questioned whether the prisoners would conduct a protest for others.
``I can't say this was a sophisticated group of individuals trying to voice their opinion about a group of people out on the street'' who have not been convicted of crimes yet, Angelone said.
Greensville inmate Michael X. Johnson said the incident at the Jarratt prison was in protest of ending parole. For his role, Johnson was convicted of setting a fire, inciting a riot and damaging property. He is being held in isolation.
Johnson, who's serving a life term for the 1985 murder and robbery of an Arlington woman, went on a hunger strike last summer, demanding to speak to Allen about his no-parole plan. He never got to meet with Allen, and he said he ended the strike after learning the NAACP and other groups also opposed the governor's plan.
Johnson said he still became the center of a protest by inmates who had planned a system-wide sit-down strike on Sept. 19, the opening day of the General Assembly's special session on parole.
by CNB