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Prison officials said Tuesday that inmates at both the Point of the Mountain and Gunnison correctional sites remained in lockdown following a spate of recent stabbing incidents.
Department of Corrections spokesman Steve Gehrke said a deliberate and thorough security assessment was continuing, nearly a week after the April 27 slaying of maximum security inmate Alfonso Lopez, 27. Lopez's cellmate, Jacob Ecker, 23, was being questioned in the death.
That murder came just eight days after a 25-year-old inmate was stabbed in the chest during a suspected gang-related altercation, also at Point of the Mountain.
Prison officials also have investigated an apparently self-inflicted stabbing that resulted in non-life threatening injuries to a 34-year-old inmate on April 20.
"We are exercising caution with a deference to security by continuing the lockdown," Gehrke said. "We do want to lift it as soon as it's feasible from a security standpoint so visitors can return to see their loved ones and so we can continue the important rehabilitative aspect inherent in corrections work."
Bob Mims