700 inmates moved after Arizona prison melees

Seven-hundred inmates are being relocated from a privately operated state prison in northwest Arizona after two nights of unrest that injured eight corrections staff members and caused major damage to the campus.

Arizona Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan ordered the transport of the inmates to other facilities, according to a news release.

A four-hour disturbance that began with an assault among inmates in the 2,000-inmate minimum security Cerbat unit of the prison in Golden Valley ended about 10 p.m. Wednesday.

A second uprising that erupted Thursday night in the companion 1,400-inmate medium-security Hualapai unit of the prison stretched into Friday morning. Department of Corrections spokesman Andrew Wilder said the second incident was more volatile.

“This was a riot,” Wilder said.

He said inmate destruction of parts of the unit rendered them uninhabitable.

Wilder said no one escaped and that all inmates are accounted for.

“The perimeter of the prison was never breached at any time of either of these events,” he said.

Wilder said all injuries were minor. He said the prison is secure and that inmate movements are restricted during a lockdown that’s been implemented in both units.

Extra personnel are providing security at the prison and an investigations team is trying to sort out which inmates are responsible for the officer assaults and damage, he said.

The same prison is the subject of a $7.5 million claim filed by the family of an inmate who died at a Las Vegas hospital Jan. 19. The claim contends Neil Early, 23, was fatally injured during an inmate assault on Jan. 16.

The same prison, operated by the Utah-based Management Training Corp. through a contract with the Department of Corrections, was also the facility from which three inmates escaped in July 2010, which led to the murders of an Oklahoma couple while they were vacationing in New Mexico.