Inmate mysteriously shot while walking
The Denver Post
The Colorado Inspector General's office
is investigating how an inmate at minimum security Four Mile
Correctional Facility was shot in the knee while at the prison,
authorities say.
The inmate, who is serving a sentence on drug
charges, was shot in the knee on Aug. 21, said Colorado Department of
Corrections spokeswoman Katherine Sanguinetti. The tip of the bullet was
removed by surgery on Tuesday, confirming that he had been shot,
Sanguinetti said.
DOC has brought in correctional officers from Pueblo and other Cañon City prisons to search the prison for a gun, she said.
"They're
doing a shake down right now," Sanguinetti said. "The facility is on
lock down. This is really unique to say the least. To my knowledge it's
never happened before."
Sanguinetti declined to name the inmate,
who told investigators he was walking around the track when he felt a
sharp pain in his knee and saw the wound. She said investigators are
trying to confirm his account.
"They'll look at the possibility
that he was targeted. But he's just an average Joe that happens to be in
prison," she said when asked whether the victim was a high-profile
inmate that someone wanted to target.
She said the inmate was
exercising during recreational time, when the yard is filled with as
many as 300 inmates pumping iron, playing team sports or jogging around
the track.
No one reported witnessing anyone firing a gun or handling a gun, Sanguinetti said.
But prison culture discourages inmates from reporting violence,,
she said. "Historically prisoners are reluctant to divulge information
because they don't want to be labeled as an informant."
Investigators are considering many scenarios, including that
someone smuggled in a gun or someone randomly fired a rifle from a
distant bluff.
"They are truly looking at all possibilities," Sanguinetti said.
Correctional
officers working inside the prison are not armed. Only perimeter guards
carry shotguns and rifles, she said. Four Mile is a minimum security
prison so it does not have any towers overlooking the facility.
Colorado Bureau of Investigation analysts will try to narrow down the weapon by the bullet fragments.
Correctional officers are searching cells and prison grounds.
They
are also searching for a weapon in surrounding barns and animal pens,
where minimum security inmates milk cows and train wild mustangs in
prison programs. Those inmates are strip-searched before re-entering
the prison.
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