By Jocelyn Brumbaugh
The Tribune-Democrat, Johnstown, Pa.
EBENSBURG, Pa. — Following the death of a state prison guard who was attacked by an inmate wearing work boots last month, Cambria County Prison officials have revised policies to outlaw that type of footwear from its facility.
During a Cambria County Prison Board meeting Wednesday morning, Cambria County Prison Warden Christian Smith said those types of boots will also be prohibited at the Manor Drive facility in Cambria Township.
Those types of boots have already been removed from inmates, who were then issued foam footwear free of charge. Soft rubber boots will be provided for inmates working on wet floors in the prison’s kitchen, Smith added, and generic work boots will be issued to inmates doing outdoor jobs.
For both of those exceptions, the boots will only be issued for the time the inmates are doing that specific type of work, Smith said.
Smith said prison officials decided on their own to prohibit the same type of boots removed by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections’ commissaries less than a week after 22-year-old Paul Kendrick allegedly punched and kicked Corrections Officer Mark Baserman at SCI Somerset Feb. 15.
Baserman, 60, was hit eight to 10 times, apparently because he confiscated a towel that the inmate had been using to block an outside view into his cell days earlier, investigators have said.
Baserman spent nearly two weeks in the intensive care unit at Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center in Johnstown and was pronounced dead Feb. 26. An autopsy showed Kendrick’s alleged attack – a series of punches and kicks to the head – caused “substantial” blunt force trauma that claimed the guard’s life, according to Cambria County Coroner Jeffrey Lees.
Following Baserman’s death, Pennsylvania Corrections Officers Association President Jason Bloom issued a public call for the prison system to pull the boots from the commissary list, saying the heavy-soled work boots were used to inflict traumatic injuries that evening.
Investigators said the attack was caught on prison surveillance video. Kendrick, an inmate serving a life sentence, is now facing additional homicide and assault charges in the attack, which the Department of Corrections said was the primary driver in the decision to remove the boots from prison shelves.
Leather-lined Timberland boots were previously available to designated “general population” inmates for purchase at $92 a pair.
Gregory Briggs, Somerset County Jail warden, said that facility has never had an issue with inmates wearing these types of boots. Jail staff issue tennis shoes for inmates assigned work outdoors, he added.
Unlike the state prison system, Smith said many inmates are allowed to wear the same shoes they were arrested in, unless they violate the county prison policies. Inmates are only allowed two pairs of footwear, he added.
©2018 The Tribune-Democrat (Johnstown, Pa.)