Four correctional officers injured in NBCI attack

Nov. 12—CUMBERLAND — The president of the local union that represents employees of two Cumberland-area state-run prisons is calling attention to what he describes as severe understaffing after four correctional officers were injured Friday in an attack by a North Branch Correctional Institution inmate.

"We need help, and we need it now," Tony Sines, local president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 898, said Monday.

Sines represents correctional officers at North Branch and the adjacent Western Correctional Institution, both maximum-security facilities.

The attack Friday morning around 11:20 a.m. resulted in two correctional officers being stabbed and two others injured, Sines said. All were taken to UPMC Western Maryland for treatment, and three had been released by Monday. The most seriously injured officer, who suffered a laceration to the neck, Sines said, was flown to J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, West Virginia, where he remained Tuesday.

The Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services said in a statement Tuesday that the correctional officers who were stabbed suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries, and the others were treated for minor injuries. The suspect inmate was uninjured.

The incident comes as the correctional officers union continues to call attention to what it describes as dangerous understaffing and outdated infrastructure in state facilities.

"We are severely understaffed up here," Sines said, adding assaults on correctional officers by inmates is a "daily occurrence."

"We house the most dangerous offenders that the state has," he said.