By Daniel Gaddy
The Anniston Star
UNION SPRINGS, Ala. — State prison officials say an inmate convicted of murder in Calhoun County in 2000 was stabbed to death Thursday at a correctional facility in Union Springs.
According to a news release from the Alabama Department of Corrections, 37-year-old Clementa Ray Curry was stabbed during an altercation with another inmate Thursday inside a housing unit at Bullock County Correctional Facility.
The incident happened at around 5:15 a.m., and Curry died while being taken to a hospital, according to the release.
Prison officials say Latahdrick Perkins, 26, is a suspect in the stabbing. Perkins is serving a 35-year sentence on a 2011 murder conviction in Montgomery County.
A Calhoun County judge sentenced Curry to 25 years in prison in connection with the 1998 death of Russell Graham.
According to news accounts from 2000, prosecutors called the incident a drug deal gone bad. Graham had been trying to buy cocaine and an argument began, and Curry and three other suspects pulled guns and fired at Graham as he tried to drive away from the scene, according to the news accounts.
Bob Horton, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, wrote in an email that Curry was involved in an altercation with several inmates inside the prison when he was stabbed. According to Horton, the unit where the stabbing occurred houses more than 160 inmates.
“When the altercation occurred, correctional officers immediately responded when several inmates, including the stabbing suspect, assaulted Curry,” Horton wrote in an email. “Correctional officers used reasonable force to control of the situation by removing and detaining the inmates involved.”
According to a lawyer with inmate rights group Equal Justice Initiative, Curry was stabbed in prison before and was denied parole in 2014 because he didn’t report the assault soon enough.
Charlotte Morrison, staff attorney for the initiative, said her organization attended Curry’s parole hearing in December 2014 along with his mother (inmates don’t attend their parole hearings). According to Morrison, members of the Pardon and Paroles Board said Curry’s failure to report the crime created a security hazard.
The Star’s efforts to reach Curry’s family were unsuccessful.
Morrison said Curry failed to initially report the attack because he feared it would single him out further as a target. It’s a complaint members of her organization hear often, she said.
“What we’re hearing is the inability of the inmates to keep safe and to survive,” she said.
Morrison said Thursday’s stabbing is indicative of a system-wide failure of the Alabama Department of Corrections to protect inmates like Curry. Morrison said procedures should be in place to protect inmates who have been identified as likely targets.
When asked what policies the Department of Corrections has in place to protect victims at risk of being attacked again, Horton wrote, “The Alabama Department of Corrections takes the safety of correctional staff and inmates very seriously. ADOC conducts periodic inspections to eliminate prison contraband. Unfortunately, some inmates are able to conceal makeshift knives and other weapons that are used in assaults against other inmates and correctional staff.”
Horton wrote that in Curry’s case, department officials identified three potential threats from a previous incident and each inmate was transferred to other facilities.
“There was not a known threat to Curry when today’s stabbing occurred today at the Bullock County Correctional Facility,” Horton wrote in the email.
Horton also pointed out that Curry’s death was the first stabbing in the Bullock County Facility in more than seven years.
Copyright 2015 The Anniston Star