By Taylor MacPherson

Inmate kitchen workers catalyst of Sask. Pen riot: Union rep

Dec 15, 2016 | 3:12 PM

The deadly riot at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary yesterday may have been started by kitchen workers, a union rep revealed.

James Bloomfield, a representative with the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers said the facility had been on a modified routine for several days prior to the riot due to issues with inmates working in the penitentiary kitchens.

“In this situation there [were] some issues with the kitchen workers, and the kitchen workers being inmates were refusing to go to work and were having some discussions over portions sizes,” Bloomfield said.

Yesterday the medium-security inmates were released from their cells to go to work and refused, Bloomfield said, which resulted in negotiators being called in.

“They realized they were not going to be fruitful in their discussions,” Bloomfield said. “There was no communication from the inmate side so we then deployed the emergency response team to control the area.”

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According to Bloomfield, while the emergency response team was preparing to retake the unit, the prisoners barricaded themselves in as best they could and set about destroying everything within reach. Bloomfield said inmates smashed every light bulb and window, pulled beds from walls, set fires and caused flooding throughout the unit.

“The destruction is quite amazing, actually,” he said. “The area is completely uninhabitable at this point.”

As violence and destruction reigned within the unit, Bloomfield said the emergency response team stormed the barricades.

“They deployed a lot of gas, a lot of pepper spray in various forms,” he said. “It was found to be not as effective as we needed it to be, as the windows were all smashed out.”

When the gas was found to be ineffective, the emergency response team was forced to use their firearms on the inmates, injuring six with shotgun pellets. Bloomfield said the officers quickly located three inmates suffering from stab wounds, one of whom died in hospital. The departed inmate was later identified by Correctional Service Canada as Jason Leonard Bird, 43.

Bloomfield said one officer was exposed to a large amount of blood and was taken to hospital as a precautionary measure. Overall he said he was impressed by the way staff handled the riot.

“At this point, it seems that everybody responded perfectly,” Bloomfield said. “Everybody did a really good job from the top down yesterday, and that’s what saved lives last night.”

Bloomfield said he anticipates prisoners will need to be transferred to other facilities as the medium-security wing “will not be operational for months.”

“We’ll be working through where exactly we’re going to house these individuals, how many we have to transfer to different institutions, and how we’re going to logistically do all this,” he said.

In the meantime, Bloomfield said mental health supports were put in place to help penitentiary staff cope with stress. The facility remains in a state of lockdown with visitation suspended.

Taylor.macpherson@jpbg.ca

@TMacPhersonNews