Assault Teams Storm Iowa Prison, Free Hostages

Five specially trained assault teams stormed a cell house at the Iowa State Penitentiary today, freeing seven corrections officers who had been taken hostage by inmates an hour and a half earlier, officials said.

Three inmates and two of the hostages were hurt, but no shots were fired and no tear gas was used, and none of the injuries were believed to be serious.

“The institution is under control,” prison spokesman Ron Welder said shortly after 9 a.m. “All the inmates are accounted for.”

Warden Crispus Nix immediately ordered inmates locked up as prison officials investigated the uprising.

Welder said it was not known what prompted the inmates to take the hostages in the maximum security prison, located in the southeast corner of the state. But Corrections Director Hal Farrier said in Des Moines that last week’s prison riot in West Virginia may have contributed to the uprising here. “Those kinds of things have a way of spreading across the country,” he said.

Farrier said the inmates scattered when the assault teams unlocked doors and burst into the cell house.