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'Significant breakdown' led to July hostage incident
By Tom Eldred, Delaware State News
DOVER - Delaware's largest prison has deep-seated administrative, staffing
and security deficiencies that must be addressed as soon as possible.
That's the consensus of an independent task force created last October by
Gov. Ruth Ann Minner in the wake of a July 12 incident at the Delaware
Correctional Center near Smyrna. On that day a female counselor was raped
before the inmate who abducted and assaulted her was shot and killed by a
correctional officer.
The group's final report, delivered to the governor Monday, was released by
her office Friday.
"The members of the task force have provided a thorough, detailed and
well-written report,'' Gov. Minner said in a prepared statement announcing
the report was released and available on the Internet.
"It cannot be summarized easily or concisely and I will not attempt to
do so, except to say that on July 12, 2004, there were many areas in which
our personnel performed admirably under extraordinary circumstances.
"However, there are other areas where the Department of Correction could
have done a better job, both that day and in the weeks and months leading up
to it.''
Commissioner of Corrections Stanley W. Taylor commended the report in a
conference call interview with reporters.
"It was a pretty difficult task,'' he said. "I think they did a
pretty good job with it. Some things we're proud of. Some things we're not
proud of.''
Mr. Taylor also revealed that he had offered his resignation to Gov. Minner
last year after the hostage-taking incident but that she refused to accept
it.
The 90-page report, plus dozens of graphs and charts, focuses on the incident
in which counselor Cassandra Arnold, after completing a stress management
class, was taken hostage in a nonsecure administrative area of Building 24 at
DCC by inmate Scott A. Miller.
Miller, a serial rapist serving 699 years in prison for multiple assaults
against women, pulled a homemade knife or "shank,'' on Ms. Arnold after
she noticed him hiding in a bathroom in a hallway near her office.
Holding the shank to her throat, Miller pulled Ms. Arnold into the bathroom
and then across a hallway into her office. Then he barricaded the door and
kept rescuers at bay for nearly seven hours until he was shot and killed by
correctional officer Keith Hoffer.
According to the report, Officer Hoffer shot Miller twice from an adjoining
room's false ceiling moments after he observed Miller raping Ms. Arnold and
as Miller was attempting to kill her.
"Having been shot twice, Miller fell on Ms. Arnold, who grabbed his
right arm and pried away the shank, as (officers) came crashing through the
drop ceiling into the room,'' the report says.
"The task force concludes that Ms. Arnold, in the face of incredible
danger, maintained her composure throughout this horrific event and her
actions were instrumental in saving her life.''
Rating the players
In a summary of its work, the task force said it conducted 52 individual
interviews, heard from many rank-and-file officers anonymously and in open
meetings, and reviewed more than 5,700 documents provided by DOC and other
sources.
The report commended Officer Hoffer and other members of DOC's Correctional
Emergency Response Term (CERT) for their "excellent" performance,
saying that with all of the controversy surrounding the incident, their
efforts were not properly noted.
The task force gave Mr. Taylor and other DOC administrators operating from a
command center during the crisis "good'' marks but rated the hostage
negotiating team dealing with Miller only "fair.''
"While the performance of the (negotiators) that day must be measured,
in part, by the end result, which could have been much worse, the task force
finds their performance to be only fair,'' the report says.
"The task force was troubled by the fact that certain critical
information was not in the hands of the negotiators or the command center.
"Finally, the task force finds the security in Building 24 leading up to
the incident was marked by complacency on the part of both staff and
management, with shortcuts designed to override security protections far too
common.
"As such, the task force concludes that the performance of DCC
management and staff leading up to the incident was poor.''
Failures identified
In the meat of the report, the task force details insufficient staffing,
inflexible management, outdated policies and procedures at DCC and the
"simple failure of both management and staff to address and correct
security breaches.''
The report scrutinizes DOC overtime polices and notes that with a workforce
approaching a 25-percent vacancy rate, DCC has increased its reliance on
"freezing'' officers into back-to-back 8-hour work shifts to meet
minimum staffing needs.
According to DOC, there are 339 vacant correctional officer positions
statewide, including 53 officers on military leave.
"The task force finds excessive reliance upon overtime (whether
voluntary or by freezing) reduces morale, which increases turnover and
otherwise leads to numerous security breakdowns, as tired staff fall victim
to complacency,'' the report says.
"As such, the task force recommends the state reclassify the
correctional officer series across the board to increase and improve
recruitment and retention, while decreasing reliance on overtime.''
Security the issue
The report makes dozens of recommendations - from equipment upgrades and
improved communications to better training to reassessment of the
classification system used to determine appropriate inmate incarceration
levels - but ultimately the focus is security.
"The task force concludes that there was a significant breakdown in
basic prison security practices and procedures within (Building 24) that
compromised the safety of staff and inmates on the day of the incident and
for quite some time prior to that day,'' the reports says.
"The warden, deputy warden and their senior manager were unaware of the
many security breaches in the (building) because in large part, they rarely
toured the complex,'' the report says.
"As a result, they all lacked first-hand knowledge of the way in which
the (building) was operating and unfortunately relied heavily on written
reports that, in most cases, did not accurately reflect the significant
violations of basic security practices that needed to be corrected.
"It does not appear that the warden, deputy warden, and senior managers
have the command and control that is essential in this type of environment.''
Complacency woes
Mr. Taylor, calling the report "very thorough and comprehensive,'' said
DOC will take the recommendations seriously and try to analyze what can be
accomplished in-house, with available funding, and what may have to be
outsourced.
He said he agreed with most of the findings, except criticism of the hostage
negotiating team.
"I think the hostage negotiators did a very good job,'' he said.
"They bought very valuable time. That's critical in these episodes.''
He said complacency in the workplace is an ongoing problem.
"That's something that creeps in 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and
365 days a year,'' he said. "That problem starts at the line level and
works its way up through the ranks to administration as well.
"The battle against complacency and security lapses is one we fight all
the time. That responsibility is broadly felt. I'll take my share of the
blame for that.''
In response to a reporter's question, Mr. Taylor said he offered his
resignation to Gov. Minner in "late summer or early fall'' last year in
the months after the July 12 incident but that she refused to accept it.
He also said he takes full responsibility for the failures identified in the
task force report.
Gregory B. Patterson, a spokesman for Gov. Minner, confirmed Mr. Taylor
offered to resign and that the governor refused the offer. He said Gov.
Minner was not available for comment Friday.
Mr. Taylor promised a full analysis of the report's recommendations but
stressed there is no such thing as absolute security in prisons.
"In this business there is no such thing as a guarantee,'' he said.
"What we do is to operate as safely and securely as possible to keep the
odds in our favor.
"It's one of the dangers of the job we have to recognize and then do
everything in our power to prevent.''
Ms. Arnold said she read the report when it was released Friday.
"I think the report is well worded and contains a lot of great
recommendations,'' she said. "I hope they do them and not just leave
them on paper.''
Jeffrey K. Martin, an attorney for Ms. Arnold, praised the report but said he
disagrees with a section that says Ms. Arnold should not have confronted
Miller in the hallway without calling for backup first.
"She did not break stride when she passed Miller in that bathroom,'' he
said. "It happened instantaneously.''
Ms. Arnold concurred. "My backup was that I was screaming and screaming
for help,'' she said.
In her prepared statement, Gov. Minner said the public can access the full
task force report online at state.de.us/governor/dccreport.
She said the report represents an important start in a collaborative effort
to "ensure that working conditions at DCC and throughout the
correctional system are as safe as humanly possible.
"For anyone with an interest in this report, I would urge that they not
only rely on the media's or anyone else's summary of it,'' she continued.
"It is a document that can only be properly judged in total, not in
pieces.''
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Senior writer Tom Eldred can be reached at 741-8212 or at
teldred@newszap.com.
Reprinted with permission from newszap.com
www.newszap.com.
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