Colorado prison officials failed for more than two hours to call an ambulance for an inmate who was gravely wounded in an attack that killed two other prisoners in the Bent County Correctional Facility last month, according to county dispatch records.
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Officials at the private prison did, however, immediately call the Bent County coroner to the scene, the records show. The coroner was sent to the facility roughly 10 minutes after the three missing prisoners were found at 1:26 a.m. June 7, but an ambulance was not dispatched until 3:37 a.m., the records show.
“It is going to be one of the victims from the earlier altercation and (he) does have vitals,” the dispatch notes for the ambulance say.
Two prisoners, 59-year-old Michael Fisher and 27-year-old Charles Gates, were killed in the June 6 attack. Investigators have identified two suspects in the slayings, but neither has been charged or named publicly.
The third prisoner, who the Colorado Department of Corrections has not publicly identified, survived. He was taken to an “outside medical facility” for treatment, Alondra Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, previously said. She has declined to offer any updates on the survivor’s status, citing medical privacy laws.
The Department of Corrections has refused to give a timeline for the double homicide and assault or offer any details about how the killings unfolded. The dispatch records, obtained by The Denver Post through an open records request, offer the most detailed account to date of how the incident unfolded.
The records begin when the Bent County Sheriff’s Office was called to the prison just after 11 p.m. on June 6 after a “missed count” — that is, prisoners were missing from where they were supposed to be.
“The prisoner could still be hiding, not sure if there is an escape,” the dispatch notes say at 11:16 p.m.
Sheriff’s deputies responded to the prison and checked the perimeter, looking for any signs of an escape, according to the dispatch records. They deployed a drone over the prison, and deputies checked a nearby home after spotting a vehicle with its door open.
The prison’s warden, Steven Brown, headed to the facility, which is run by private prison company CoreCivic, at 11:52 p.m., according to the dispatch records. The sheriff’s office sent out an emergency cellphone alert to residents at 12:45 a.m., urging anyone who lived within a 10- to 15-mile radius of the prison to shelter in place.
“This is a precautionary measure due to an internal administrative discrepancy at the facility; there are no signs of exterior fence or security breaches,” the alert said. Authorities called for dogs to be brought to the scene, and they searched fields nearby.
Finally, at 1:26 a.m., all three of the missing prisoners were found, according to the dispatch records. The Bent County coroner was sent to the prison at 1:37 a.m.
No one called for an ambulance until two hours later, according to the dispatch records.
When the ambulance was finally dispatched, officials also considered calling for an emergency medical helicopter, the records show.
It was not immediately clear who discovered that the survivor was alive or whether the man received any medical treatment from prison staff before an ambulance was called.
Gonzalez and Ryan Gustin, a spokesman for CoreCivic, did not immediately return requests for comment Tuesday.
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