By Russ Rizzo
The Salt Lake Tribune
UTAH — Corrections chief Tom Patterson told legislators Wednesday the department put officers at risk with a policy that left them alone to transport high-risk inmates.
“It appears that having one-on-one transports may have been a bit risky,” Patterson told members of the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee.
Patterson’s attendance before the committee came in wake of the June 25 slaying of Corrections Officer Stephen Anderson, who was allegedly shot by a prisoner he escorted alone to the University of Utah’s orthopedic center for an MRI.
The prisoner, white supremacist Curtis Allgier, who has since been charged with capital murder, was considered a high-risk inmate, and Anderson should have been wearing a Kevlar bullet-resistant vest, Patterson said. According to the department’s procedures, Allgier also should have been in hand restraints during the MRI.
But the department’s policy did not mandate two officers to escort Allgier, Patterson said.
To fix the problem, Patterson said, he will ask for $1 million in immediate new funding to hire more officers. The money, which must be approved by legislators, would pay for 15 officers, two sergeants and one lieutenant.
Patterson also plans to require at least two officers for every inmate, no matter the inmate’s threat level, during transports. And he promised to explore ways to reduce prisoner travel.
After the hearing, Sen. Jon Greiner, R-Ogden, said he was surprised to hear the Department of Corrections allowed a single officer to transport high-risk prisoners.
“This is a wake-up call,” Greiner said.
Patterson has acknowledged that two officers escorted Allgier during previous medical visits but declined to say why that changed for the June 25 visit.
He also has declined to comment on a prison memo obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune last month that indicates Allgier’s cell mate alerted prison guards to an escape plot in July 2005.
That previous escape plot involved a woman waiting outside University Hospital with a gun during one of Allgier’s medical visits.
Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder told legislators he also put two deputies on every inmate during transports temporarily following Anderson’s death but expected to return to the previous policy of assessing threat levels on a case-by-case basis.
At the request of legislators, Winder outlined policies on media interviews of jail inmates. Allgier sat down for two hours of interviews with local media outlets from the jail two days after his arrest, admitting to shooting Anderson but saying it was an accident.
“If people want to make statements adverse to their own personal goals, it is what it is,” Winder told legislators. “We don’t feel the obligation to gag prisoners without a court order.”
“Greiner said Allgier’s media blitz puzzled him.
“It was strange,” Greiner said. “It caught all of law enforcement by surprise. Here he was on TV telling people about the crime he just committed.”
Patterson said he hoped to reduce prison transports by bringing physicians to the prison and holding initial appearance hearings on camera from prison rather than from the Salt Lake County jail.
Greiner said legislators would ask more pointed questions about the circumstances of Anderson’s death after the Department of Public Safety completes an investigation of the Allgier escape and of the Department of Corrections’ prisoner transport policies.
Copyright 2007 The Salt Lake Tribune