By Miguel Torres
The Arizona Daily Star
FLORENCE, Ariz. — Multiple prisoners were injured, one severely, and transported to hospitals after a riot at Arizona State Prison Complex–Eyman.
On April 26, several messages went out on social media accounts tied to family and friends of people incarcerated at ASPC-Eyman, a state prison complex in Florence, about a possible violent attack involving an unverified number of people.
State prison records indicate that at least five men housed in the Rynning Unit at ASPC–Eyman were listed as “out to hospital” on April 27, the day after the reported large-scale fight at the complex.
The inmates include men serving sentences for offenses such as murder, armed robbery and aggravated assault and appear in Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry records reviewed by The Arizona Republic.
The Corrections Department has not responded to questions about whether their hospitalizations were directly tied to the incident.
The Corrections Department called the incident an “inmate-on-inmate altercation involving multiple inmates,” while Carlos Garcia, executive director of the Arizona Correctional Peace Officers Association, said he received information from correctional officers that the incident involved more than 100 people and left one person brain dead.
Garcia called it a “full-blown riot” and said Arizona prisons had not seen a riot of that scale since the 1960s.
He said correctional officers told him the riot started between 2:30 and 3 p.m. and was so large that helicopters and multiple ambulances were needed to transport injured prisoners. Garcia said one prisoner was flown out and others were taken by ambulance.
Garcia also claimed that, because of staffing shortages, injured prisoners were escorted to hospitals by one staff member per prisoner, which he said violated transport protocols that require additional security for some high-risk prisoners.
The Corrections Department did not respond to Garcia’s claim.
In its initial press release, the Corrections Department said its early investigation indicated the fight appeared to be the result of a “gang-related dispute” and said it did not pose a threat to the wider prison population or staff.
Garcia claimed that high-risk prisoners involved in gang violence should not have been housed at the Rynning Unit inside Eyman.
He said Rynning is a close-custody unit where people still have contact with one another, while prisoners he described as level 5, maximum-custody prisoners, should be housed separately in more restrictive conditions. Garcia said mixing those populations increases the risk of violence.
The Corrections Department said that the Rynning Unit was under restrictions and that visitations had been canceled until further notice.
Garcia claimed the current administration under Corrections Director Ryan Thornell has been moving higher-risk prisoners into lower-security custody through classification overrides. He compared the issue to the case of Ricky Wassenaar, who the Corrections Department identified as the sole suspect in the April 4, 2025, deaths of three inmates at Arizona State Prison Complex-Tucson’s Cimarron Unit.
Garcia said Wassenaar was on an “override,” and online inmate records showed his classification had been reduced from maximum security to close custody in December 2024.
The Corrections Department did not immediately respond to Garcia’s claims or provide additional details about the number of people involved in the prison fight or updates on those injured.
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