By C1 Staff
COLUMBIA, S.C. — An investigation has been launched after an inmate, who has been reprimanded twice for cell phone violations, livestreamed threats and showed a knife on video.
Jose Ariel Rivera, 31, went live on Facebook on Aug. 4 with a fellow inmate and made threats to a man who was contacting his “baby mama,” WIS TV reported. He is serving a 10-year sentence at Evans Correctional Institution for a 2014 robbery conviction.
Rivera is seen in the video walking up and down the halls of the prison, stopping at one point to show off the prison drinking fountain. He goes on to say that his “baby momma is tripping” and he holds up a knife threatening a man who has been communicating with her.
https://www.facebook.com/WIS10/videos/10155599362355763/
Rivera was reprimanded in March for a social networking violation and in April for cell phone possession. He lost telephone, canteen and visitation privileges for a year and television privileges for six months.
In March, the FCC approved measures to streamline the process for using technology to detect and block contraband phones in U.S. prisons and jails, the Associated Press reported. The approval did not make it legal to jam cell phone signals in prison, which officials say is the ultimate goal.
DOC spokeswoman Sommer Sharpe said in a statement that this is a prime example of why the FCC should allow prisons to block cell phone signal in prison.
“We’ve been very vocal about what an issue contraband cell phones are, not only in our prisons, but in corrections departments across the country. This video is another example of the unfettered access to the outside world that cell phones give our inmates,” Sharpe said.