Inmates Seize Prison Wing, Take Five Guards Hostage

About 30 inmates confined to a special disciplinary unit seized a wing of a maximum-security prison Monday in Upstate New York to protest alleged harassment by officers and took five guards hostage.

One of the officers taken hostage during the 10:30 a.m. rebellion at the Coxsackie Correctional Institution reportedly suffered a head injury and was seen lying on the ground by colleagues who were unable to help him.

“The inmates overpowered the officers and took control of the unit,” prison spokesman James Flateau said.

A three-member crisis intervention unit made up of specially trained guards began negotiations with the 32 inmates, separated by a steel and acrylic plastic door that divides the main prison building from the disciplinary unit. A 300-foot corridor links the two buildings, Flateau said.

No Threat to Kill Hostages

He said prison officials received reports that inmates in the disciplinary unit were armed with knives, but said no threats had been made against the lives of the five hostages.

The other prisoners were confined to their cells, Flateau said.

Rifle-toting police surrounded the red-brick prison in the Catskill Mountains 20 miles south of Albany, and a busload of 30 state troopers and local police, wearing orange jackets, entered the prison gates about 1 p.m., Flateau said.

He said the inmates have issued no demands but were upset at what they called harassment by corrections officers.

“The inmates have complained about abusive language, things like that,” Flateau said. “The complaints were more generic than directed against any specific individuals.”

Union Calls for More Guards

A leader of the union representing prison guards said the Coxsackie takeover, a day after an outbreak of violence at the Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Washington County, showed that New York’s prisons are undermanned.