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Colorado DOC Freezes Visitations After Two Prisoner Deaths

Loaded on July 1, 2026 published in Prison Legal News July, 2026, page 62
Filed under: Lockdowns, Visiting. Location: Colorado.

The Colorado Department of Corrections (DOC) briefly suspended visitations at each of its 21 facilities after an incident left two prisoners dead and one injured at the Bent County Correctional Facility (BCCF) in the southeastern corner of the state.

The deaths occurred on Saturday, June 6, 2026 and led to an immediate lockdown at BCCF. A few hours later, the DOC suspended visitations across the state “out of an abundance of caution”; by Monday morning, the ban was lifted at every facility except for BCCF. While the names of the two deceased prisoners were identified by the Bent County Coroner’s Office as Charles Gates, 27, and Michael Fisher, 59, the events that led to their deaths have so far not been publicly disclosed.

Gates had faced eight criminal cases since 2022 and was most recently sentenced to two years in prison in January of this year after pleading guilty to theft between $5,000 and $20,000, according to the Denver Gazette. Fisher had been sentenced to life in prison after his conviction for first-degree murder in 1998.

PLN will continue to follow this story and report any updates in a future issue.  

 

Source: The Denver Gazette

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