SMYRNA, Del. (AP) - A corrections union official says the guard killed at Delaware's largest prison saved his colleagues' lives by warning them that inmates had set a trap.
Union President Geoffrey Klopp says that after inmates forced Sgt. Steven Floyd into a closet, the 47-year-old called out to warn other officers coming to his aid. Klopp says Floyd "absolutely" saved lives.
Floyd was found dead early Thursday after authorities used a backhoe to smash through a barricade of footlockers and end a nearly 20-hour hostage standoff at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center.
Floyd was a 16-year veteran with the prison and is the first corrections officer in Delaware to be killed. Klopp said Floyd went the "extra mile for any human being he could help."
Floyd's Death Preventable
Union president Klopp charged that Floyd’s death was preventable and blasted the state for understaffing and low pay.
He said that Floyd’s death was directly related to staffing problems that continued through the administration of former Governor Jack Markell.
WBOC reports that the Delaware Homeland Security Secretary Robert Coupe said the prison system was down around 90 positions on any given day.
Meanwhile, in Maryland the Salisbury Daily Times reports that prison union president Patrick Moran warned that if staffing shortages continue, “Something traffic is going to happen.”
The paper also reports that as soon as the hostage crisis began Maryland’s prison officials began to look at whether similar situations could arise.
