HUDSON, Colo.—A small group of Alaska inmates took over a section of the privately owned Hudson Correctional Facility during a prison disturbance early Wednesday.
No serious injuries were reported in the disturbance that happened at the prison owned by Cornell Companies Inc. Company spokesman Charles Seigel said eight inmates damaged sprinklers, setting off a fire alarm, and tried smashing through a metal reinforced window leading out of a common area.
“They made little holes but couldn’t come close to breaking through,” Seigel said.
Alaska Department of Corrections spokesman Richard Schmitz said a state corrections official was at the prison on an unrelated assignment. The disturbance happened at about 1:30 a.m. when cell doors in a segregation unit opened inexplicably and eight of 41 inmates housed in the pod refused to leave the common area to go back to their cells, Schmitz said.
The disturbance ended at about six hours later when a company tactical team entered the area, Siegel said.
Some of the inmates involved suffered minor injuries, Schmitz said.
Cornell opened the 1,250-bed medium security prison in November, and it houses about 877 inmates from Alaska. The company has a contract to house up to 1,000 inmates at the prison, about 25 miles northeast of Denver.
“There were no (major) injuries, no hostage situation, no escapes,” Schmitz said.
He didn’t know the criminal histories of any of the prisoners, but said none was high-profile.
The Colorado Department of Corrections, which oversees private prisons in the state, is investigating the incident.
