State prison guards continue searching for inmate’s weapon

WARREN – Maine State Prison guards were still searching Friday for the weapon an inmate used Thursday to slash a fellow prisoner’s neck.

During a tedious “shakedown” of more than 100 cells, however, guards “found a couple of other shivs,” Warden Jeffrey Merrill said Friday, referring to makeshift knives considered contraband.

The lockdown mode had been lifted, he said, but the search for the suspected weapon was continuing.

Prison officials do not believe that either of the homemade weapons found during Thursday’s shakedown are the one used in the attack, which inflicted a nearly three-quarter-inch-deep, 6-inch-long gash in the victim’s neck.

At the time of the knifing at 8:20 a.m., some 70 prisoners were shifting from the indoor recreation area to the recreation yard outdoors. An undisclosed number of guards were walking behind the group of inmates when the attack happened very quickly, the warden had said.

A second prisoner suffered minor bumps and bruises when he was punched in the scuffle. He was treated in-house by medical staff.

After the fight, the seriously injured prisoner was taken to Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport for stitches and then was released, Merrill said, calling the wound a “deep, severe cut.”

Four “pods” or sections of the medium-security unit were locked down during the shakedown Thursday, and additional staff from the nearby Bolduc Correctional Facility were called in to assist in the weapon search. Second-shift staff also were contacted to come into work early that day.

The search for the weapon and an investigation into the incident continued Friday, Merrill said. He would not release the names of the injured prisoners or two inmates believed to be involved in the knifing.

Prison officials suspect the attack was related to a “strong-arming” tactic used by some inmates to let other prisoners know who is boss and who is in control, Merrill had said.

There are approximately 900 inmates housed at Maine State Prison.