ROANOKE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, August 7, 1994                   TAG: 9408090076
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: E-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DILLWYN                                LENGTH: Short


NO ONE HURT IN PRISON DISTURBANCE

The Dillwyn Correctional Center was under a lockdown Saturday, the result of a standoff that began when inmates disobeyed orders to return to their cells from a recreation yard.

A fire was set in a trash can and a window was broken at the medium-security prison's commissary during Friday night's two-hour confrontation, but no hostages were taken and no injuries were reported, prison officials said.

The prisoners returned to their cells after being approached by riot-control officers who had been called to the state-run facility in Buckingham County. The incident ended by 11 p.m., said Hazel Boothe Brown, the prison's operation officer.

After calm was restored, about 98 inmates who were identified as ringleaders were loaded on buses and vans Saturday and transferred to seven maximum-security prisons around the state, warden Daniel T. Mahon said.

Mahon said some inmates were apparently angry over the scheduling of a ``family day,'' which they wanted to take place on Labor Day weekend. Although a date for the family day - an in-prison picnic for prisoners and their relatives - had not been set, prison officials were considering a date later in September when it would be easier and cheaper to schedule extra staff for the event, Mahon said.

Mahon said he wasn't sure if family day was the real issue, or what exactly caused the demonstration, but he said he believed it was spontaneous.



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