A somber-faced Gov. Pete Ricketts joined state corrections officials in denouncing the slayings at the Tecumseh State Prison. He insisted that the state’s troubled and overcrowded prison system is making progress and that Thursday’s melee was not a “riot.”
“The loss of life was tragic, but this is a dangerous place,” Ricketts said. “As long as the inmates make bad decisions, we’ll have to respond to incidents like this.”
State Corrections Director Scott Frakes, who was hired by Ricketts 25 months ago to fix the problems with state prisons, said staff responded “flawlessly” when a report came in at about 1 p.m. that inmates had started a fire in a small yard attached to a maximum-security housing unit.
When about 40 inmates refused orders to return to their cells, Frakes said, staff left the unit’s day room and locked doors leading to other units, thus confining the disturbance to one-half of one housing unit. The affected area can hold up to 128 inmates.
Several altercations ensued between inmates, and several fires were set inside the housing unit, he said, as emergency response teams were activated. Those security teams, clad in black riot gear, finally entered the housing units at 4:30 p.m., when the two bodies were discovered.
Frakes, Ricketts and Tecumseh Warden Brad Hansen did not identify the slain inmates, describe how they were killed or say whether suspects had been identified. They said that the cause of the melee was still under investigation and that the Nebraska State Patrol would look into the slayings.
The prison remains locked down.
