Violence at Ohio Prison Flares; 7th Body Found : Uprising: Cause of prisoner’s death not revealed. Disturbance spreads to second building as inmates are tear-gassed in cells to quell the unrest.

The violent unrest at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility spread on Tuesday to a second building, where a seventh corpse was discovered, and authorities later fired tear gas to subdue unruly prisoners in their cells.

Negotiations continued with about 450 inmates who have been holding eight guards hostage in the L Block since Sunday. Six inmates’ bodies were recovered from the L Block on Monday. State prison officials said the six had been beaten to death by other prisoners who had taken 24-inch batons from guards.

Dennis Weaver, 43, apparently died early Tuesday morning in K Block, where he, like several hundred other L Block prisoners, had been moved at their request about 9 p.m. Sunday, six hours after an Easter riot began the crisis here.

K Block became severely crowded as a result of the transfers and, like every building at the maximum security prison, is under “lock-down,” meaning inmates are generally confined to their 63-square-foot cells.

Weaver’s body was found during a patrol of K Block, said Tessa Unwin, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. She said Weaver, who was serving time for aggravated murder, was not alone, but she would not say how many others shared the space. She would not reveal how he died, except to say that it was “not of natural causes.”

Unwin also declined comment “until we have some verification” on a published report that callers from inside the prison were saying that as many as 50 to 150 bodies were in the institution’s gymnasium. The Portsmouth Daily Times, a newspaper published in a nearby town, reported that callers described the corpses being removed in makeshift coffins. A Daily Times reporter said he did not know who made the phone calls.

During the afternoon, K Block prisoners “were getting rowdy,” shaking bars and yelling, said Mike Lee, a correction department spokesman in Columbus. Authorities used tear gas to quell the disturbance, Lee said.

The jam-packing of K Block was being relieved by the transfer of about 80 prisoners to other Ohio institutions, Lee said. About 1,000 inmates were still in the building.

The pace of negotiations “kind of yo-yos, according to who we’re talking to,” Unwin said. “. . . There are so many people in there with different interests. That’s what slows us up.”

Though officials continued to refuse to divulge 18 of the 19 demands they have received from inmates--they said only that the inmates want to talk with the press and that the rest concern “prison rules”--some of the “different interests” are beginning to surface.

The prisoners have been hanging sheets out of the L Block windows. One on Tuesday demanded “No Forced Integration,” said Lynne Barst, a spokeswoman for the guards’ union, the Ohio Civil Service Employees Assn.

That issue has apparently been simmering for several years in Lucasville, as the prison is commonly known. Tim Reed, who identified himself as a former Lucasville inmate in a telephone call to The Times, said that Warden Art Tate wants one of every three cells to be integrated. The prison is about 65% black and 35% white.

“I filed a very lengthy grievance,” said Reed, who says he was paroled in May, “and I pointed out to the prison warden that it is not good to put people in a cell who do not like each other.”

Racial tensions in the prison have been aggravated by active white supremacist, such as the Aryan Brotherhood, and black gangs.

Correction department officials said the hundreds of inmates controlling L Block include both blacks and whites. Among the hostages, one of the eight is black. Among the dead, one of the seven is black.

Tate came to Lucasville in the fall of 1990, shortly after a prison trusty slit the throat of an adult education teacher. The inmate had served as her assistant.

Many outside the prison speak admiringly of Tate’s efforts to reduce crowding and restore order.

Many inmates, however, chafed at the new rules, Reed said.

“We’ve heard both things about Tate,” said Barst, of the correctional officers’ organization. “That he was real well respected, but also that he was strict to the point where some of his rules were kind of picky.”

Times staff writers John J. Goldman and Tracy Shryer contributed to this story.