SOMERS — - The state's maximum security prison will remain on lockdown through the weekend as correction officials and state police try to unravel why three separate attacks on prison guards took place on Friday, including one that left a guard unconscious.

Brian Garnett, a spokesman for the Department of Correction, said Saturday that the lockdown at Northern Correctional Institution was ordered to "stabilize the situation." A lockdown means inmates are confined to their cells and visitations are canceled.

DOC officials will review the situation Monday and decide whether to end the lockdown, he said.

State police have been called in to investigate. DOC officials have said little about the attacks, other than that they were not related and that four inmates were involved.

A source familiar with the attacks said the worst one occurred in what is called the "gang area" of the prison. A prison guard taking a prisoner to his cell was brutally attacked.

The source said that as the guard opened the cell door to let the inmate back in, his cellmate threw something at the guard, distracting him. The two inmates then jumped the guard and beat him until he was unconscious, the source said.

The guard was treated at a local hospital and released, Garnett said.

The other incidents were not as violent, the source said.


Connecticut's Maximum Security Prison Remains Locked Down, As State Seeks Expl

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