THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 13, 1996 TAG: 9609130562
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: 59 lines
Prisoners smashed TV sets, security windows and lights, and tore out toilets and water coolers, in the new Pasquotank Correctional Institution before the riot was quelled without injury early Thursday, penal officials said.
The riot involved between 40 and 60 inmates, imprisoned at the maximum-security facility for committing violent crimes. The inmates refused to go to bed and began rioting around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, apparently angry over the lack of canteen privileges, said Patty McQuillan, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections in Raleigh.
Outside riot teams were called in, and by 3 a.m. the disturbance was over and the men involved had been placed in segregated cells. They were held in a lockdown during interviews Thursday.
Homemade knives, called shanks, were found at the scene, McQuillan said.
Michael R. Baker, an administrative assistant at the Pasquotank prison, said Thursday morning that the public was never in jeopardy.
``Never, at any time, was there any possibility of them getting out,'' Baker said.
Although no one was hurt, the riot caused ``thousands of dollars'' in damage to two cell blocks within the prison's Unit IV area, McQuillan said.
The Pasquotank facility, about seven miles north of Elizabeth City, began accepting prisoners in March. It holds about 725 inmates; eventually, up to 1,140 at all security levels are expected to be housed there.
The uproar apparently involved prisoners upset with a delayed canteen opening.
``Right now the biggest complaint that they're hearing is that inmates were not having canteen privileges like they wanted,'' McQuillan said.
``They had access to another canteen within the prison, but they didn't have one in their section because there was no computer cash register,'' she said.
The prison's canteens operate on a cashless basis, using prisoner identification cards to process purchases for items such as toothpaste and cigarettes.
The register that prison officials were awaiting was scheduled to be installed next week, ``and the prisoners knew that,'' McQuillan said.
The melee ended after 26-member Prison Emergency Response Teams from Pasquotank, Caledonia and Odom responded.
``That's when the inmates started going into their cells, when they realized they were outnumbered,'' McQuillan said.
By midmorning, 31 inmates had been identified as instigating or being actively involved in damaging the prison. They were scheduled to be sent to other prisons and placed in solitary confinement, McQuillan said.
The investigation into the cause of the riot and possible disciplinary action will continue, Baker said.
McQuillan said prison riots are rare in North Carolina.
``It does happen, but not as often as one might think with 93 prisons,'' she said.
The last major uprising occurred on New Year's Day 1994 at the Polk Youth Institution. That one involved 130 inmates and sent 17 of them to hospitals.
KEYWORDS: PRISON RIOT INMATES by CNB