THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 2, 1994 TAG: 9412020588
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LAURA LAFAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: EMPORIA LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
The first of four correctional officers charged with attacking inmates at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt pleaded no contest Thursday to assault and battery.
Dennis Price, 26, will serve 30 days in the Greensville jail for throwing a bucket of scalding water onto an inmate locked in D-Unit, a segregated section of the prison where inmates are sent to be punished.
In light of Thursday's plea, said Corrections Department spokesman Gene Johnson, Price will be fired.
The inmate, Harry Edward Warrington, suffered third-degree burns on his face, chest and stomach. Price, a correctional officer for five years, was originally charged with malicious wounding, but pleaded no contest in exchange for the lesser charge.
According to testimony Thursday, the June 18 incident took place after Warrington asked Price to deliver to the prison nurse a form requesting emergency medical treatment. Price took the form to the nurse, but she refused to come, instructing Price to tell Warrington ``he could take a couple of Tylenol and she would try to get over there to him tomorrow.''
When Price relayed the nurse's message, Warrington became angry and threw an unidentified liquid at the guard through the holes in his cell door. At this, Price left the area, returned with a bucket of scalding water and threw it at Warrington.
Judge W. Park Lemmond, Jr., a Prince George County judge who tries cases in Greensville twice a month, said the guard's reaction was ``one that anybody can understand.''
``They may empathize or sympathize with what he did, but it can't be accepted,'' said the judge. ``It can't be accepted in a society. It is not civilized . . . We don't take the law into our own hands. It's not the law of West Pecos and Judge Roy Bean anymore. We have courts to take care of these situations.''
For that reason, said the judge, it was appropriate to sentence Price to jail.
``It's tough to have had this happen, but it has to be,'' he said. ``It's kind of like a mother saying, `I still love my child, but he has to be punished. He did something wrong. It doesn't mean he's a bad person.' ''
Price was among four Greensville correctional officers indicted in October for assaulting inmates. The remaining three - Alphonso Smith, Larry Bynum, Jr. and Sgt. Benjamin Williams - have been charged with malicious wounding for allegedly beating shackled inmates in September. Bynum's trial is set for Dec. 22 and Smith's is set for Jan. 19. Williams' trial has not yet been set.
Warrington, who is serving the seventh year of a 33-year sentence for sexual assault and rape, has been transferred to the Keen Mountain Correctional Center in Buchanan County.
KEYWORDS: ASSAULT SCALDING INJURIES ARREST
PRISON by CNB