Guard Shoots Inmate During Brawl at Lancaster Prison

A guard shot and wounded an inmate at the state prison here Wednesday, the third such incident in the past month and the fourth since the prison opened in February, 1993.

The 1 p.m. shooting occurred after an unknown number of maximum security inmates began fighting with “manufactured weapons” and refused orders by guards to stop, said prison spokesman Kenn I. Hicks.

Three inmates were injured in the fight, although only the gunshot victim was taken to a hospital, Hicks said. The other two were treated by prison medical staff for superficial wounds.

The names of the three inmates were not released pending notification of relatives.

The shooting occurred about the same time that the prison’s new interim warden, John Ratelle, took control of the facility after the ouster last week of Warden Otis Thurman.

Thurman, who had been in charge of the prison since it opened 13 months ago, was told to retire or to accept a demotion and transfer after four escapes, including two by maximum security inmates, according to sources in the state Department of Corrections.

A group of maximum security inmates, Hicks said, were on their way from their housing unit to the prison yard when an unknown number of them began fighting, using improvised knives.

After orders to halt were ignored, Hicks said, a control-booth officer fired a single shot from a 9-millimeter carbine, hitting one inmate in the left shoulder.

A similar incident occurred Feb. 9, when a guard shot one of two inmates who were fighting and ignored orders to stop. On Feb. 15, a maximum security inmate was shot after taking “an aggressive stance” and refusing to leave his cell when ordered to do so.