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By C1 Staff
APPLEVILLE, Wis. — What seemed like a harmless bet between a warden and a shift commander turned disastrous Tuesday when a riot broke out and a fire erupted at High Prairie Correctional Facility following some ill-advised comments.
Warden Earl E. Knight had almost finished his fourth full shift working in the general population dorm when all hell broke loose. What started as a passing conversation between the frazzled and exhausted warden and an unidentified inmate ended with a riot which injured more than 30 inmates and correctional officers when a massive two-alarm fire overtook the facility. Officials are reviewing surveillance footage of the incident, but have not issued any preliminary statements about what those cameras captured.
“I don’t even know what I said. One minute we were talking about basketball, and the next thing I knew, the place was on fire and people were kicking the living shit out of each other,” Knight said from his hospital bed.
One inmate being treated for second-degree burns told Corrections1, “I wasn’t close enough to hear what happened, but [Warden Knight] has been staying stupid stuff all week long. It’s like he arrived by time machine from the 1960s. I don’t think he even knows how stupid he sounds when that hole in his face flaps open.”
According to facility records, Knight had not worked a single shift among the prison population in more than 30 years. He was working the dorm area because he lost a bet with the midnight shift commander that he could beat him in an arm-wrestling match.
Earlier in the week, Knight reportedly held an event he called “Coffee with a CO” in which inmates and correctional officers sat down at the same table and “socialized” with each other. That event also nearly ended in disaster as tensions began to flare between various parties over perceived ‘hogging’ of the non-dairy creamer.
Disaster was averted a second time when, the following day, Knight attempted to “bring the inmates together with the COs” by recreating elements to the 1974 movie “The Longest Yard” with a flag football game in the prison yard. Flag soon turned to tackle, and a significantly sized brawl ensued.
One correctional officer — who spoke on the condition of anonymity — said that the midnight shift commander who defeated the warden in that match never thought Knight would actually interact with the prison population.
“I think that as soon as he won that bet, he figured [Knight] would find a way to not make good,” he said. “We were all pretty surprised, actually, when he showed up for roll call the other day. Then he showed up again. We all just looked on in amazement. Of course, in 20/20 hindsight, we probably should have let him off the hook. He was totally unprepared to deal with today’s population, and now we see what happens when you put a fish like that into the tank.”
Knight suffered numerous contusions but somehow escaped the fire. It is expected that he will return to his duties as warden in about three weeks.