Five-hour riot at Colorado prison involves several hundred inmates

OLNEY SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) -- Inmates rioted and set fires at a privately run prison, destroying one living unit and extensively damaging four others, officials said today. Several inmates were injured.
The disturbance at the medium-security Crowley County Correctional Facility began Tuesday evening in the recreation yard and grew to include several hundred prisoners, corrections department spokeswoman Alison Morgan said. It was quelled about five hours later.
One of the prison's five living units was effectively destroyed, and the other four were damaged, as was a vocational greenhouse, Morgan said.
No guards were injured, Morgan said. Thirteen inmates were transported from the prison and four of them remained hospitalized, said Louise Chickering, a vice president with Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America, which owns the prison. She had no detail on the nature of the injuries. Some inmates were treated for existing conditions such as asthma and diabetes, Chickering said.
The prison, which opened in 1998, is designed to hold 1,152 and currently has 1,125 -- 807 from Colorado, 120 from Wyoming and 198 from Washington. It is 50 miles east of Pueblo in the southeastern part of the state.
Officials were investigating whether the riot was gang-related, Morgan said.
CCA is the nation's largest private prison operator, owning a private prison in Youngstown.
Last month it signed a contract with Colorado to house 128 maximum-security inmates at a prison it owns in Mississippi.
Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.