By Beth Defalco, The Associated Press
BUCKEYE, Ariz. (AP) -- Tempers flare occasionally during negotiations with two inmates holding a pair of corrections officers hostage in a prison watch tower but talks are going well, a prison official said Thursday.
“The negotiations continue, and the longer they go on the more the quality and quantity improve,” said Ivan Bartos, the warden at the Yuma prison, who has been helping in the hostage standoff.
Authorities have not released details of the negotiations, including whether the inmates have made specific demands in exchange for the guards’ release or any threats. They also haven’t discussed why the inmates may have captured the guards.
“It’s difficult to understand, and pointless to speculate, what they were thinking, or what the inmates want,” said Bartos.
At one point Thursday, one of the inmates appeared on top of the tower and looked over the sides, said Cam Hunter, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman.
Hunter said the inmate may have been there to verify that the situation outside was as negotiators had described it.
The standoff began Sunday morning after an inmate attacked a guard in a kitchen area. That prisoner and another inmate then got into an observation tower where the two guards, one male and one female, were stationed.
The identities of the inmates and guards involved have not been released.
The officers told negotiators that they are all right Wednesday night.
“They said that they’re doing fine, and of course that’s considering that they’re in a terrible situation,” said Hunter.
The voice contact was at least the second time negotiators have spoken with the officers over the course of the ordeal at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Lewis, a 4,400-inmate medium- to high-security prison west of Phoenix.
Negotiators saw the guards earlier in the week. Bartos said officials couldn’t see any injuries on the male guard, who is thought to be hurt, but noted they could only see him from the waist up.
On Wednesday, one of the inmates holding the guards hostage set off a gas canister that landed in a prison yard.
It wasn’t clear what provoked it, but no one was hurt, Hunter said. Prison officials didn’t retaliate and discussions resumed, she said.
Hunter said negotiators kept in contact with the inmates throughout the night. They’re talking by phone and radio.
She said that except for some coffee and water sent in earlier in the week, she didn’t know whether any food had been supplied to the inmates during the standoff. Hunter said the tower has a small refrigerator used by the officers but didn’t know how it was stocked when the inmates took over.
The guard tower, in the middle of the prison grounds, is believed to be stocked with weapons.
Until the crisis is resolved, the other inmates at the prison are in lockdown, meaning no one is allowed in the yards and inmate movement is heavily restricted.
Bartos said the mood inside the prison is subdued.