ALDEN, N.Y. — The Erie County Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate a rebellion Monday night at the county’s correctional facility, where inmates took over a cell block and held it for four hours.
The revolt ended peacefully, with no one hurt.
However, the head of the union representing corrections officers tell 2 On Your Side that the incident demonstrates that the facility is understaffed by officers who don’t have what they need to prevent this sort of rebellion and are ill equipped to suppress one when it occurs.
“I’ve been here since 1998 and we’ve never had a situation like this,” said Marc Priore, a corrections lieutenant and the president of CSEA Local 815, which represents employees at the facility.
According to Priore, this particular bout of unrest could be traced to the confiscation of a microwave used by inmates on the cell block where the incident occurred.
Give Us Back Our Microwave
“Inmates have no right to the microwave, it’s a privilege,” noted Priore, who said the microwave was taken nearly two weeks ago after it was discovered that a metal plate been removed from it, which officers feared was being fashioned into weapons.
“So, rightfully they lost the microwave privilege within the housing area pending an investigation,” Priore said.
But when no weapons were discovered and the piece of metal was found after being inconspicuously placed on an officer’s desk, in Priore’s mind it may have been prudent for microwave privileges to be returned, especially when inmates were threatening to take action over the matter.
He also says this was communicated to jail administration.
“It was the right decision to take the microwave away…and the tail shouldn’t be wagging the dog here," Priore said. "But for our staff safety, after a period, it wasn’t worth it in our eyes to withhold the microwave any longer. As things grew more precarious, there was the risk of keeping the microwave from the inmate population in this particular housing area because they were basically telling us that there was going to be some potential for a group action."
On Monday evening, the inmates took action.
Tense Situation
According to a timeline of events provided by the Sheriff’s Office, after getting their 5 p.m. supper, 41 inmates refused to obey orders to return to their cells for the evening lockup.
The single officer supervising them retreated as they began busting up tables and chairs and fashioning weapons while using other furniture to barricade the door.
According to Priore, inmates later covered windows and doors in order to prevent facility staff from observing them.
As jail staff marshaled additional forces, a sheriff’s SWAT team was summoned, and extra deputies were dispatched to the facility.
“We were fully prepared to take back the unit,” Priore said, indicating that could have been by use of force if necessary.
“Fortunately, it didn’t come to that,” he said.
According to Priore, during the standoff jail staff communicated to inmates over loudspeakers, stressing that a peaceful resolution was desired. Priore also noted that some of the inmates had already missed their medications, including two who were diabetic, and that this was communicated to the leaders of the rebellion as well.
“It was about waiting them out… essentially they gave up," he said. But the incident underscores deeper concerns.
It’s About More Than a Microwave
“Locking in and obeying orders is not optional for the inmates and they are solely to blame for the handling of the situation the way they did,” Priore said.
However, he believes the incident demonstrates some troubling trends that have made officers less safe than ever in their already dangerous job.
“Inmates have become more disrespectful and more emboldened than I have ever seen,” he said.
He says this is partly due to new reforms ushered in by the administration of Governor Andrew Cuomo, which not only hamstring corrections staff in their ability to deal with inmates who cause trouble, but also puts the safety of corrections officers in peril.
This includes banning certain types of disciplinary measures such as what might commonly be referred to as “solitary confinement,” just the threat of which was something that might keep prisoners in line.
“We’ve kind of lost our teeth,” Priore said. “Historically if you broke the rules you had to go to administrative segregation and often times had to serve a disciplinary sentence there. Through the last year or so we’ve had to cut back on the amount of time that inmates are getting in keeplock, and to a large extent the New York State Commission on Corrections has certain mandates that when inmates do go to keeplock they are allowed way more time out of their cells. This leads to less accountability. The inmates are bolder and feel that it's okay to break some of the rules.”
The results regarding officer safety have been demonstrably unfavorable, according to Priore, who claims that there have been more assaults on officers at the Erie County Correctional Facility in the last 18 months than there had been in the previous 10 years combined.
Ill Equipped, Ill Prepared
If things do get out of hand, such as during an uprising, Priore says staff at the facility are currently ill equipped to handle it.
“We don’t have a lot of the less lethal tools at our disposal to quell such a situation.. such as batons, tasers, or pepper ball guns, which are things that are used at other facilities nationwide. We don't have such things at our disposal, nor do we have the technical plan to deal with situations such as last night’s," he said.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, the inmates involved in the incident now face administrative disciplinary charges as well as criminal charges.