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| Inmate stabs 2 staff members with homemade knife at prison |
| By Statesman Journal |
| Published: 09/17/2004 |
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A prison inmate stabbed two Oregon State Penitentiary security staff members with a homemade knife Wednesday, inflicting wounds that left one officer hospitalized. Lt. Gary Russell, 34, an eight-year corrections veteran, was stabbed twice, once in the back and once in the left shoulder area, during the noon attack, officials said. A Salem Hospital spokeswoman said Wednesday night that she couldn't confirm or deny that Russell was in the hospital. Correctional officer Mark Taylor, 45, was stabbed once in the leg while restraining the inmate. He was treated at an urgent-care facility and released, prison officials said. Suspected in the stabbings is inmate Michael Ivester, 22. He was locked up in the prison's Disciplinary Segregation Unit after the incident. So far, no motive has emerged for the violent outburst. "It was an unprovoked attack," said Perrin Damon, a Corrections Department spokeswoman. Mike Yoder, a penitentiary spokesman, said that no words were exchanged between the officer and the inmate before Russell was stabbed. The incident occurred on the Control Room floor at the 2,276-inmate maximum-security prison in Salem. Typically, inmates pass through the busy area to get to their housing units. Damon said that stabbings of prison staff members by inmates are rare in Oregon's 12,000-inmate corrections system; she could not say when the previous one occurred. Oregon State Police and Corrections Department staff members are investigating Wednesday's attack. Ivester entered the custody of the Department of Corrections on Dec. 12, 2002. He is serving a prison term of almost 25 years for the brutal kidnapping, beating and robbery of a Sunriver-area man. The penitentiary was placed on a partial lockdown as a precaution, and visiting hours were cancelled for Thursday. |
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