By paNOW Staff

Yearend Coverage Late Entry: Riot shuts down Sask. Pen

Dec 27, 2016 | 11:00 AM

When 185 medium-security inmates were released from their cells for a work shift Dec. 14, tensions were already running high within the Saskatchewan Penitentiary.

The prisoners, specifically the kitchen staff, had recently lodged numerous complaints about the institution’s meals, specifically the small portion sizes. The complaints had evolved into a protest and food deliveries to the federal prison had been missed as a result.

Penitentiary administrators made some changes to the inmate’s routine in response to the protests, but couldn’t have anticipated the violence and destruction which would still be unleashed.

The trouble started when the inmates refused to go to work.

The guards ordered them back into their cells but they refused as the situation boiled over into a deadly riot.

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At 1 p.m. the medium-security unit was put into a state of lockdown, meaning no more inmates would be released from their cells and visitations were suspended. At 3:30 the lockdown was extended to the maximum-security portions of the prison as a precaution, but 185 prisoners were already loose and uncooperative within the medium-security unit.

Union spokesman James Bloomfield said there was no communication from the inmates as the incident continued, so the prison’s emergency response team was told to gear up.

After the negotiations broke down violence and destruction took over inside the medium-security unit.

According to Bloomfield, the prisoners destroyed everything they could reach, ripping out beds and smashing windows. Pipes and heat vents were torn apart, causing flooding. Inmates stacked mattresses and started fires and set about building ad-hoc barricades out of furniture.

At some point in the afternoon, just a few hours after the initial lockdown, administration made the hard decision and accepted the situation was not going to end peacefully. Force was required. The emergency response team was ordered to storm the barricades.

They tried gas first.

Bloomfield said the emergency team deployed “a lot of gas; a lot of pepper spray in various forms.” Unfortunately, because the windows had all been shattered the gas dispersed quickly and didn’t effectively subdue the rioting inmates.

With no other options, the emergency response team opened fire on the rioters with shotguns, injuring six and driving the remainder back into cells.

Then they found the bodies.

There were three of them, all inmates, unresponsive and suffering what Bloomfield described as “multiple, multiple stab wounds.”

Guards quickly extracted the wounded and sent them to hospital along with one guard who had been exposed to blood during the battle for control of the prison, but it was too late. One of the injured prisoners, 43-year-old Jason Leonard Bird, serving two years and seven months for break-and-enter offences, was pronounced dead in hospital.

The first communications from Correctional Service Canada, released late that same night, only said the prison had been locked down “following a major disturbance.” Bird’s death was announced the next day, but corrections didn’t announce until early afternoon they were back in control of the prison.

Inside the penitentiary, extensive damage was reported. Bloomfield said the prisoners wreaked an amazing level of destruction, rendering the medium-security unit “uninhabitable.” Large numbers of prisoners are being transferred to other facilities during reconstruction.

There are still many questions left unanswered. Correctional Service Canada, notorious for secrecy, has released very little information beyond confirming a few details. The guards, who would be fired for talking to the media, were only able to provide unconfirmed reports.

This week, seven days after the riot, a corrections spokesperson said nobody who was present during the riot is available to be interviewed and no photographs showing the damage are available.

RCMP and the Office of the Chief Coroner, who are conducting investigations into Bird’s death, only said their investigation is ongoing.

Corrections also wouldn’t how many inmates were transferred, or where they went. The penitentiary remains in a state of lockdown almost two weeks after the fatal riot , and though many details remain just as securely guarded, paNOW anticipates following this story well into 2017.