Alaska Prison Guard Terminated for Fighting off Prisoners with Pocketknif

by Joe Watson

A former guard at the Spring Creek Correctional Center—Alaska's only maximum-security prison—is now contesting his November 2012 termination for bringing a pocketknife to work and then stabbing at least two prisoners who allegedly attacked him.

Kim Spalding, 45, was fired just two days shy of a 20-year career and full pension after Alaska's Department of Corrections determined he violated policy when he came to work armed on Oct. 24, 2012. Without the knife that day, Spalding claims that he "would have been either killed or pretty well maimed" at the hands of his attackers—angry, he says, that he confiscated their prison hooch.

Spalding, who claims, ironically, to be a stickler for rules, says he was working alone in a housing module with 64 prisoners the day of the alleged attack. When trouble erupted elsewhere in the prison and he ordered the prisoners into lockdown, he says, at least one prisoner refused and told Spalding: "Let's do this."

After the prisoner allegedly punched him in the head, Spalding—who is lean and 6 feet 6 inches tall—says another jumped on his back, and a third then joined in. Spalding says he thought if he didn't do something, he would die. Yet, he didn't choose to use his state-issued pepper spray because, Spalding says, he didn’t believe it would have worked on "hyped-up" prisoners and he was afraid of misting himself. Instead, he fished for the knife in his pocket.

"I finally get it out, I open it," Spalding says, "I turn and then just start thrusting at anything that moved."

Two of the prisoners were treated at a hospital, according to an Alaska State Troopers report—presumably for stab wounds—and Spalding says he suffered two black eyes, bruising all over his body, and he received stitches on his head and thumb, where he admits he might have cut himself.

Since Spalding is challenging his firing, DOC officials refused to confirm the facts of the alleged attack, according to the Anchorage Daily News, and the newspaper refused to publish the names of the prisoners identified by Spalding because none of them have been charged in the incident.

But Bryan Brandenburg, DOC's director of institutions, did say that the pepper spray with which Spalding and all prison guards are armed is "very effective." Though prisoners can theoretically continue to resist if sprayed, according to Brandenburg, they "very quickly become subdued and ask to be restrained and taken to the shower."

The issue, however, isn't that Spalding chose to use his pocketknife instead of pepper spray, argues the union that represents Alaska's prison guards. Rather, according to officials with the Alaska Correctional Officers Association, staffing shortages and scheduling changes are to blame, making Alaska's prisons increasingly dangerous and forcing guards like Spalding to protect themselves even if it means violating policy.

"This was not a light decision for me," Spalding says. "I went basically four years without carrying a pocketknife at all, when I knew of sergeants, senior officers" who did.

Incidentally, at the time of the alleged attack, Spring Creek had 346 prisoners to 104 guards. As of the end of March 2013, there are 306 prisoners—down substantially from the prison's maximum capacity of 557—to 102 guards.

Source: Anchorage Daily News

Subscribe today

Already a subscriber? Login