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N.Y. COs Contain Uprising

AFSCME COs reacted bravely and professionally to contain a July uprising at Mohawk Correctional Facility in Rome, N.Y., agree officers and officials some seven months after the incident.

"My colleagues were outstanding. They held the situation and kept it from going overboard," says Steve Kline, a member of AFSCME Local 3623 (Council 82) and one of the officers who helped contain the riot. He says, "The union supported us 100 percent. And now they are working to make sure the situation doesn’t happen again."

Ten officers were injured in the July 18 attack, which involved some 300 inmates. Thankfully, none of the injuries was life-threatening. The incident began with a fight between inmates in the prison yard, and escalated when inmates moved into one yard, in defiance of orders for them to separate into two. COs succeeded in containing the incident and inmates were held in the yard until early the following morning. The prison was under lockdown until July 22. The facility is located about 40 miles east of Syracuse and houses 1,305 inmates, some 141 of whom were double-bunked at the time of the uprising.

In his official report on the incident, the commissioner of the state department of correctional services praised the officers’ "professionalism and restraint ... in defusing the incident and thereafter maintaining order within the facility."

Bob White, president of Local 3623 agrees: "The officers did their job above and beyond what was called for in maintaining a situation that could have been totally out of control. Even while officers were injured, they continued to work to keep order."

Since the uprising, AFSCME Council 82 has succeeded in keeping free weights out of Mohawk, and is working to get towers for the facility and to increase staff.

Council 82 Pres. Rich Abrahamson says, "What happened at Mohawk clearly underscored the dangers of overcrowding, which leads to placing violent and assaultive inmates in medium security facilities because of a shortage of maximum security space."

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