THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 20, 1994 TAG: 9409200315
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: JARRATT, VA. LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
Inmates set fires in a maximum-security cell-block and stormed a prison exercise yard Monday, prompting armed guards in riot gear with attack dogs to quell the uprising.
The disturbances at the Greensville Correctional Center came as Virginia legislators convened 80 miles away in Richmond to consider abolishing parole and lengthening prison sentences.
Two inmates suffered minor wounds and several others suffered smoke inhalation after prisoners set fires in two separate prison buildings and a fight erupted in a dining hall, a prison spokesman said.
Prison spokesman Wayne Brown said it was not clear whether the General Assembly's special session on parole triggered the disturbance.
About 175 inmates occupied the recreation yard before guards handcuffed them and returned them to their cells, officials and witnesses said. All inmates were inside by 1 p.m., Brown said.
A fight broke out around 8 a.m. during breakfast in one of three clusters of prison buildings at the southeastern Virginia penitentiary. A fight broke out at the same time in a neighboring building, and inmates streamed into a recreation yard when the smoke set off a sprinkler system, Brown said.
Once outside, the inmates seized the yard and damaged the innermost of three fences surrounding them, corrections officials said.
Inmates in another of the three cellblocks set a second fire around 10:20 a.m., Brown said.
State Public Safety Secretary Jerry Kilgore said a special prison emergency response team with specially trained dogs brought the disturbance under control.
No shots were fired during the incident, said Department of Corrections Director Ron Angelone.
Brown said one building had extensive flooding and a number of prison windows were broken.
About 50 of the specially equipped riot officers emerged from the prison yard around 2:30 p.m. after the last of the inmates were returned to their cells.
``It's no big deal,'' Gov. George Allen said of the incident. Allen was elected last fall on a strict anti-crime platform and recommended abolishing parole.
No staff members were injured, but two inmates received minor cuts, Angelone said.
Dave Magruder, a spokesman at Greensville Memorial Hospital, said one inmate was admitted Monday afternoon. Magruder did not know the extent of the inmate's injury or his identity.
A treatment area was set up at the prison to handle other injuries.
Angelone said inmates at Greensville were ordered confined to their cells virtually around the clock until an investigation was complete.
Two other Virginia prisons, the Powhatan Correctional Center and the Nottoway Correctional Center, have also been under lockdown for about a week. At Powhatan, the lockdown began after a kitchen knife disappeared, and at Nottoway, a small group of inmates tried to overtake officers, Angelone said.
``Any time we hear anything about any kind of disturbance, we're going to lock the place down. That saves the taxpayers money,'' Angelone said.
The maximum- and medium-security Greensville prison, only about 5 years old, is one of the state's newest; it has a capacity of 2,000 inmates but was housing 2,100 on Monday.
There was no immediate indication whether crowding had any effect on the disturbance, but inmates and prisoners' rights groups had predicted that eliminating parole would increase tension and prison violence.
One veteran prison officer at Greensville said she was not surprised by Monday's uprising and predicted more such incidents as a result of the parole proposal.
``It's long overdue,'' said the officer who spoke on the condition she not be identified. ``It's going to happen again and again.''
Virginia's electric chair is housed in a separate building at Greensville prison, but Death Row inmates are confined at the maximum-security prison at Mecklenburg about 45 miles away. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
Inmates of the Greensville Correctional Facility's cellblock C lie
on the ground as they are taken into custody by armed guards at the
prison in Jarratt, Va., on Monday. More than 100 inmates rioted in
the morning and were put under control by 2:30 p.m.
Staff map
Area shown: Greensville Correctional Center
KEYWORDS: RIOT DEMONSTRATION JAIL CORRECTIONAL CENTER PRISON by CNB