Correctional Officers

A brief in yesterday's editions incorrectly reported the charge for which an escaper from correctional officers had been imprisoned. The escaper, Donald Watson, had been convicted of possession of drugs with intent to distribute them.The Sun regrets the error.

A 57-year-old prison inmate was found dead Thursday night inside a maximum-security prison cell in Allegany County, state police said. The man was an inmate at the North Branch Correctional Institution in Cumberland. Division of Correction officials have not released the man's identity because family has not been notified. The man's cell mate told a correctional officer around 6 p.m. Thursday that he thought there was something wrong, police said. Inside the cell, correctional officers found the inmate unresponsive and he was taken to the Western Maryland Regional Health Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

Three county correctional officers who were being investigated for possible misconduct at the Harford County Detention Center recently resigned and will not be criminally charged, authorities said. The officers - two men and a woman - were accused of "infractions of agency policy and procedures" and resigned shortly after an investigation began last month, said Robert B. Thomas, a spokesman for the Sheriff's Office. "The warden concurred with the sheriff that an investigation was warranted in each of the three incidents and, as a result of the internal investigation, the employees at their own volition opted to resign their positions," Thomas said.

Myra Wooten's Thanksgiving came from prison. Officers from state correctional institutions in Jessup and Baltimore delivered a large box packed with a week's worth of food, including a frozen 13-pound turkey, to the East Baltimore resident. The box came in a blue van usually used to shuttle shackled prisoners between jail and court, but on Tuesday it ferried canned vegetables, macaroni and cheese, and cake mixes to needy families around Baltimore. "Now I don't have to worry about Thanksgiving," said Wooten, a 32-year-old single mother of two young boys who lives on East 23rd Street.

Damage to the Maryland Correctional Institution at Hagerstown from Saturday's 2 1/2 -hour riot in which 58 inmates and correctional officers were injured is now estimated at more than $1 million, prison officials said yesterday.Although engineers and maintenance staff were still reviewing the extent of the damage, the preliminary estimate was between $1.2 million and $1.5 million, said Sgt. Gregory M. Shipley, spokesman for the Division of Correction. Just after the riot, officials estimated the damage at only about $50,000.

Correctional officers at the Carroll County Detention Center found a noose fashioned from a bedsheet in an inmate's cell late Sunday, hours before the prisoner was to be sent to a state Division of Correction facility, authorities said.Christopher McDermott, 24, was sentenced last week to four years in prison after he was found guilty of violating probation on 1997 charges of reckless endangerment and second-degree assault.McDermott had been held at the county jail in Westminster since July 28, authorities said.

Baltimore County jail officials said this week they are pushing to hire more correctional officers for the overburdened system, where 10 percent of the guard jobs remain vacant at a time when prisoners are crowded three to a cell.Dorothy Williams, jail administrator, told the County Council that six employees will start next week, and nine are being screened.She said officials are working to speed the selection process.But her assurances at Tuesday's budget work session might not be enough to satisfy correctional officers, who have intensified criticism about staffing shortages, involuntary overtime and low pay."

Correctional officers at the Anne Arundel County Detention Center voted yesterday to accept a one-year labor agreement that gives them at least a 5 percent pay raise effective July 1. The vote was 89-7, said Clifford Thrasher, president of Local 2911 of the Communication Workers of America, which represents the county's 220 correctional officers. "We've had people here for 10 years, and this is the highest raise they've [ever] received," said Thrasher, adding that the pay increase will allow the Detention Center to keep more of its employees.

The warden at the Maryland prison that has been locked down since inmates rioted last May will be reassigned at his own request, corrections officials said.Mason W. Waters, warden of the Maryland Correctional Institution near Hagerstown, will begin working temporarily at Division of Correction headquarters in Baltimore, according to Gregory M. Shipley, a prison system spokesman.Waters requested the reassignment 2 1/2 weeks ago, Shipley said.Fifty-eight inmates and correctional officers were injured in the MCI-H riot, which caused property damage estimated at $1.5 million.

A 34-year-old inmate who tried to scale a fence at the House of Correction in Jessup surrendered after officers opened fire in his direction, said a corrections spokesman.Inmate Randolph McDowell, of Baltimore, made the "spontaneous" escape attempt about 3 p.m. yesterday while he and 138 other inmates were in the recreation yard at the House of Correction, said Leonard A. Sipes Jr., director of public information for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services."He bolted over an interior fence toward two perimeter security fences in the southwest corner of the yard," Sipes said.

The state Board of Public Works has approved a $500,000 settlement for the family of an inmate killed in 2004 while officers attempted to subdue him using pepper spray at a Western Maryland prison. The family of Ifeanyi A. Iko had been seeking $28 million in a federal wrongful death lawsuit, which will now be dismissed. The settlement - thought to be one of the largest Maryland awards in a prisoner death or injury case - was approved at Wednesday's board meeting. Gary Adler, the Iko family's attorney, said the settlement also includes a condition that the prison system revisit policies related to Iko's death.

Executive Smith home after surgery Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. was back home in Reisterstown yesterday after being released from a Towson hospital, where he was admitted last week with chest pains. Surgeons at St. Joseph Medical Center performed triple-bypass surgery on Smith, 66, after discovering arterial blockages in his chest, although they said he had not suffered a heart attack. Smith was released Monday and "continues to do very well," according to a statement from his office.

Two inmates at the Jessup Correctional Institution were taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center yesterday after being stabbed during an altercation, officials said. The inmates were suffering from serious injuries after the confrontation, which took place in a common area of one of the housing units, officials said. Rick Binetti, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said one of the inmates was serving a life sentence for murder, and the other was serving a seven-year sentence for drug possession with intent to distribute.

Upper Marlboro - With the investigation of a detainee's homicide inside a cell in Prince George's County stretching past its fourth day, the local chapter of the NAACP criticized authorities yesterday for not suspending the nine officers who worked in the area where the death occurred. "There are nine individuals identified and all are still employed and still on duty," said June White Dillard, the NAACP chapter president. "We feel it is imperative that they be placed on administrative leave until a complete and thorough investigation has been completed into the homicide of Ronnie White."

A convicted murderer was given a second life sentence yesterday for stabbing three correctional officers in exchange for $1,000 and an ounce of marijuana from fellow inmates at the former Maryland House of Correction in Jessup. An Anne Arundel County jury found Daniel Brigham, 30, guilty last year of attempted first-degree murder and other charges for stabbing a female corrections officer and two other officers who came to her aid Dec. 29, 2006. The troubled facility was closed in March 2007.

The family of a detainee who was fatally beaten by correctional officers inside Baltimore's state-run Central Booking and Intake Center three years ago and the state attorney general's office have reached a tentative settlement in a lawsuit connected to the man's death, attorneys on both sides confirmed yesterday. Sources familiar with the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the deal has not been made final, said the state is expected to pay $500,000 to the family of Raymond K. Smoot.

Angry inmates assaulted correctional officers, broke windows and set a fire at the Baltimore City Jail early yesterday after refusing to leave a holding pen for other quarters at the jail.A Schmoke administration spokeswoman for the jail and a vice president of a union representing correctional officers gave vastly different accounts of the incident, which began about 6:30 a.m. and resulted in minor injuries.City Hall said the disturbance involved three inmates and was not serious enough to disrupt the routine at the jail; the union official said that 100 inmates were involved and that it was a "major disturbance."

A government employees' union is providing free "hostage" insurance to members who work as correctional or police officers.The insurance, which pays a half-year's salary when an employee has spent at least 12 hours as a hostage, covers 2,400 members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees throughout Maryland.William H. Bolander, executive director of AFSCME Council 92, said most of those employees are correctional officers in state prisons and local jails.A hostage incident at the Maryland Penitentiary in Baltimore last month fueled the union's concern about providing benefits to members who are taken captive by prisoners or criminals, Bolander said.

Todd Vest was driving twice-convicted killer Kevin G. Johns Jr. from a Hagerstown courthouse back to prison in February 2005 when the inmate began chattering away in the back of the caged van. "They think it's bad now. The killing has just begun," the correctional officer quoted Johns as saying. "They will have to kill me to stop the killing." Vest testified yesterday that he thought nothing of the remarks at the time, since defendants say all kinds of things after they are sentenced in court.