Prayers needed

[MorgansBoss]

As some of you know I've worked as a corrections officer for over twenty years. Early this morning another local officer was escorting an inmate at the hospital, was assaulted, his handgun wrested from him and shot in the face by the inmate. The officer is in critical condition but incredibly lucky to be alive at all. The inmate didn't get far but unfortunately he was apprehended alive.

 

The injured officer needs all the prayers you can spare.

 

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/cri...ack=1&cset=true

[Doble Troble]

OK. I am so sorry.

[FC]

The wife and I will keep that on our evening list.

[AzRednek]

Morgan sure hope your co-worker is doing ok, I said a prayer last night. Something similar happened to a co-worker friend of mine apx 20 years ago, only not as serious. My friend used to spend his National Guard time in the transportation of federal prisoners. My friend got a billy club in the solar plexis and pepper sprayed as he laid on the ground. All because the only armed weekend warrior couldn’t bring himself to shoot the perps. The escapees were all caught within a few hours by Texas State Troopers.

 

[FC]

I didn't want to sign up for the Baltimore Sun. What's his first name? How extensive is the damage?

[odies dad]

Prison guard is shot; fleeing inmate caught

Officials say prisoner overpowered officer at hospital, took his gun

Jan 26, 2006

 

By Greg Garland and Stephanie Desmon

sun reporters

Originally published January 27, 2006

HAGERSTOWN // A prison inmate being treated at Washington County Hospital overpowered the correctional officer who was guarding him early yesterday, grabbed his gun and shot him in the face before sending police on a several-mile chase in a hijacked taxi cab, authorities said.

 

The correctional officer, a 44-year-old father of four, was in critical condition in intensive care awaiting surgery at the hospital yesterday. Co-workers identified him as Jeff Wroten of Martinsburg, W.Va.

 

"He's fighting for his life," said Priscilla Doggett, a spokeswoman for the state Division of Correction. "Today is a very sad day for all of us who wear the correctional officers' uniform."

 

The inmate, identified as 20-year-old Brandon Morris of Baltimore, was apprehended after the taxi - still being driven by the cabbie - crashed just over the Pennsylvania border. Authorities said Morris fled back into Maryland on foot where he was apprehended, without incident, by police in the parking lot of an industrial park.

 

Morris, according to court records, was sentenced in Baltimore on armed robbery and assault charges in 2003. He was serving his time at Roxbury Correctional Institution, part of a complex of three prisons housing 6,500 medium-security inmates outside Hagerstown. He was scheduled to be released in 2010.

 

The shooting raises questions about the procedures used in guarding and transporting inmates off prison property, including whether correctional officers should be armed while standing watch inside hospital rooms and how inmates should be restrained.

 

Morris was supposed to have either one leg or one arm shackled to the hospital bed, according to prison officials. It is unclear how he was able to get free and get his hands on the gun. Wroten was the only person assigned to watch over Morris, which is also prison procedure, officials said.

 

"At this time we believe that procedure was followed, but it's part of the investigation," Doggett said.

 

Morris had been transported to the hospital late Wednesday and admitted that night, though officials won't say what was wrong with him. Wroten came on duty at the hospital for the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift. He was filling in for a sick co-worker who normally worked nights guarding inmates at the hospital. Wroten called to check in with prison officials just before 11 and again before 3, as procedures require.

 

But about 5:15 a.m., Wroten was found by hospital personnel shot in the face in Morris' fifth-floor room and the inmate had taken off. Morris first tried to get a woman who was visiting another patient to hand over her car keys, but she refused, officials said. Then he raced out of the emergency room exit and escaped in a cab he commandeered, its driver still at the wheel. The two led hospital security vehicles and then police on a car chase at about 40 mph up Route 11 before crashing near the Pennsylvania border. The cab ran into a concrete wall along the side of the road. Morris was still armed when he was captured, officials said.

 

Police were able to follow the cab more easily because the driver kept his radio's microphone open and officers could listen in on where the car was headed. No information has been released on the cab driver, who was not hurt.

 

Wroten has worked for the state Division of Correction for four years. He worked for the West Virginia prison system before coming to Maryland.

 

Doggett said she isn't aware of any previous inmate escapes from Washington County Hospital.

 

Yesterday's incident is the latest in a series of violent incidents at state prisons involving inmates and officers. Three weeks ago, three correctional officers were attacked by more than a dozen inmates at a prison near Cumberland. Two weeks ago, 10 inmates got into a brawl in the yard at the Maryland Correctional Institution-Hagerstown, sending two to the hospital. In October, about 130 inmates at Roxbury staged a 30-hour protest over living conditions there.

 

Nine detectives from the Internal Investigative Unit of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services have been assigned to assist Maryland State Police with the investigation of yesterday's shooting, said spokesman Mark A. Vernarelli.

 

The attack at the state prison angered correctional officers, many of whom have been at odds with prison administrators over staffing levels and working conditions.

 

Ron Smith, an official with the Maryland Classified Employees Association, a union that represents state employees, said he doesn't understand why only one officer is assigned to an inmate in the hospital.

 

"That just goes to show staffing's not appropriate," Smith said. "It's just not enough to cover the amount of inmates they have."

 

Correctional officers don't carry weapons inside the prison. When they transport inmates by bus, officers have guns but are separated by cage-like screens from inmates so the guns don't get into the wrong hands. Officers haven't always carried guns on hospital duty, but a rule change now requires it.

 

"Some of the officers objected to the change. They thought having the gun wasn't worth the risk," said Janet Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Classified Employees Association, which represents many correctional officers. Officers worried that not only could an inmate steal the gun, his or her friends and family could attack an officer and grab the gun in an escape attempt.

 

"What they were worried about happened," she said.

 

greg.garland@baltsun.com stephanie.desmon@baltsun.com

Sun staff writer Gus G. Sentementes contributed to this article.

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2006, The Baltimore Sun

[z1r]

I answered your request last night.