Kansas' El Dorado Prison Sees 4th Incident In 3 Months

EL DORADO, KS — A troubled prison near Wichita saw another inmate disturbance, a senior union official said, in at least the fourth incident at the facility over the last three months.

Robert Choromanski, executive director of the Kansas Organization of State Employees, told The Associated Press that 30 inmates refused to stand down and a special security team was called to the prison Friday evening. The information came from a prison worker who was monitoring emergency communications, he said. Further details weren't immediately available.

Todd Fertig, Kansas Department of Corrections spokesman, could not immediately be reached for comment. Fertig told the Kansas City Star two inmates were hurt at El Dorado earlier in the day, one with "several puncture wounds." No employees were hurt, he said. (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.)

He did not respond to a question from the Star about the reported evening disturbance.

The El Dorado Correctional Facility, about 30 miles northeast of Wichita, has become a dangerous place to work since state officials began transferring some of the most dangerous criminals to the facility earlier this year, guards told AP earlier this week. They said the facility was tense because of overcrowding of inmates, a shortage of staff including guards, and shifts as long as 16 hours a day.

There have been at least three previous disturbances at the prison in recent months. They were the week of May 8, on June 24, and on June 29. In each case inmates refused to obey orders and in two cases they took over the prison yard for hours. The corrections department did not disclose the first two incidents, which were confirmed to the AP by prison employees. The third disturbance on June 29 became public only after inmates obtained a working cellphone during the incident and called relatives.

Photos credit: Orlin Wagner/Associated Press