MANSFIELD, Ohio – The inmate who allegedly took a corrections officer hostage Sunday reportedly made a phone call during the incident.
According to a report from WMFJ Channel 21 in Youngstown, Jermaine McKinney called the TV station’s newsroom around 3:30 p.m. Sunday to seek answers about his case while holding a female corrections officer hostage in the ManCI library.
McKinney is serving two life sentences for the 2005 murders of 43-year-old Rebecca Cliburn and her mother, 70-year-old Wanda Rollyson.
“I want Jazzmine McIver, Youngstown Police officer Russell Davis, Youngstown Police Captain Barry Findley along with my mother and another relative and attorney in a room together,” McKinney said, according to WMFJ. “I want to ask Jazzmine and them ten questions apiece. As soon as I ask the questions, I am coming out of here.”
McIver testified against him in his 2006 trial.
Neither the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction nor ManCI officials have released the names of people involved in the Sunday hostage situation.
ODRC chief of communication JoEllen Smith said investigations into the incident are ongoing.
“Both our interview review and a criminal investigation by the Ohio State Highway Patrol are underway,” she said Wednesday in an email.
According to the WMFJ report, McKinney told a Channel 21 reporter that the corrections officer was safe and would be released after his questions were answered, ending the call saying “he had to go and needed to call his kids.”
He did not disclose what questions he had for the people he sought.
The Sunday incident at MANCI began around 10:30 a.m. and ended by 9 p.m.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol was on scene Sunday to help direct traffic and said the incident was being handled internally by ManCI. A Special Response Team also responded.
An Oct. 19 news release from the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association called for an immediate stop to allowing corrections officers to work alone with inmates.
“Not only is the practice unsafe, in this case, it was in direct violation of an agreement we had with the state,” said Doug Mosier, an OCSEA leader and local union president at ManCI.
According to the release, the local OCSEA chapter has filed a grievance over the policy of that pulls corrections officers off of “utility posts” – permanent posts that can be closed when not needed – which can leave areas understaffed.
The release states: “During Sunday’s incident, an officer on a utility post in the library was pulled to another post to provide religious programming, leaving his partner alone in the library with inmates. A permanent post at the chapel was eliminated several years ago.”
“At the time they pulled the officer, all activity should have ceased in the library, but it didn’t. Obviously, the inmate saw an opportunity and took it,” Mosier said. “That is just not acceptable.”
OCSEA President Christopher Mabe echoed Mosier.
“We have too many officers getting caught alone by predator inmates. When we see serious injuries to staff, it is often because they have been caught alone,” he said.
The union plans file a statewide grievance against ODRC’s “utility post” practice and is calling for an expansion to the agency’s “working alone” policy to include corrections officers.
Union leadership was on location offering assistance during the Sunday hostage incident, which lasted nearly 11 hours.
Violence has increased at Level 3 prisons, according to the ODRC’s latest 3-Tier System report, which includes ManCI. Furthermore, according to the OCSEA release, violence levels at the facility are on track to double this year from 2014.
“[Sunday’s] incident is a grim reminder of how dangerous Ohio’s prisons continue to be,” Mabe said. “It is thanks to the courage of that officer as well as the dedication of our special teams, that the incident was resolved without the officer being critically harmed.”
The extent of the involved corrections officer’s injuries have not been disclosed by ODRC, ManCI officials, or union leadership.
Union calls for immediate halt to practices that left female Correction Officer alone with inmates