Alabama Prison Stabbing Leaves Inmate Dead

ELMORE, AL — An Alabama inmate is facing a murder charge in the stabbing death of another inmate in a prison yard at Elmore Correctional Facility, officials said.

Timothy Robertson, 47, was fatally wounded Tuesday night, the third prisoner slain this year at the overcrowded and understaffed lockup, the Department of Corrections said Wednesday. Video surveillance and witnesses identified Jason Lee Jackson, 28, as a suspect after an officer found Robertson in distress, officials said in a statement.

Robertson was serving 35 years for rape and Jackson is serving five years for robbery. (For more information on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Two other prisoners died in separate stabbings in February, and an officer was wounded in a stabbing in March at the medium-security lockup north of Montgomery.

Prison Commissioner Jeff Dunn said the agency is assessing all of its maximum- and medium-security facilities to determine where "critical staffing" is needed.

"The safety of our officers and those in our custody is our utmost concern, and we will employ all available resources to prevent the escalation of violence in light of recent incidents," Dunn said in the statement.

In all this year, four homicides have happened in Alabama prisons, including one at nearby Staton Correctional Facility, and officers have been injured in six assaults, prison spokesman Bob Horton said in an email interview.

Officials don't know of any single reason Elmore has a higher homicide rate than other state prisons, but the facility is badly overcrowded and understaffed.

Elmore has only 72 of the 169 officers it is authorized to employ, yet the prison population is at 190 percent of its designed capacity with 1,145 inmates, Horton said. As a result, inmates are packed into huge dormitories with limited oversight.

"The inmates are double-bunked and an officer's line of sight inside the dorms is limited, which can lead to a higher risk of violent activity," Horton said.

State lawmakers have refused proposals to construct new prisons, and administrators say low pay and dangerous working conditions make it difficult to hire and retain officers.

By JAY REEVES, Associated Press

Photos credit: Alabama Department of Corrections via AP