By Julie Carr Smyth
Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A series of recently discovered videos that provide a detailed look at the aftermath of a deadly prison riot has been brought to light by the state’s prisons inspection committee.
In an email posting Monday, the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee called attention to the detailed footage from the Lucasville prison riot in 1993, which it called insightful.
“The videos, taken by a corrections officer who provides running commentary, are a chilling reminder of the worst case scenario in corrections,” executive director Joanna Saul said in the email.
The three video segments, totaling 90 minutes, were posted to YouTube about nine months ago by Jason Carver. Attempts to reach him on Monday were unsuccessful.
Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction spokeswoman JoEllen Smith confirmed that the videos show the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, where the 11-day siege took place. The uprising was one of the deadliest in U.S. history, leaving one guard and nine inmates dead. Damage to the facility was estimated at $40 million.
The videos feature a narrated tour of the devastation at the maximum-security prison.
The footage shows hallways barricaded by bed springs and upturned equipment, cellblocks littered with debris, graffiti and broken glass and rooms covered in bullet holes and blood. The narrator doesn’t censor the tour, showing the area where guard Robert Vallandingham was restrained and killed, passages where other guards taken hostage were held and beaten and escape and rescue routes taken by those who survived.
The videos came to light as the prisons inspection committee prepared a tour for new state lawmakers.
The prisons department couldn’t immediately provide information on the genesis of the material or about whether it was ever made public earlier.