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Fighting prompts extra jail security
By Thomas Farragher, Globe Staff, 7/14/2001
 everal fistfights in two weeks at the Nashua Street Jail have injured 15 Suffolk County guards and led to the lock-down this week of the jail's 650 detainees.
All pretrial detainees were locked in from early Wednesday morning until 6 p.m. Thursday as officials at the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department waited for tensions to ease.
"It's a seasonal thing," said Richard M. Lombardi, director of communications for Suffolk County Sheriff Richard J. Rouse. "When it's hot and muggy and you bump into people, you just sort of lose your patience."
Lombardi said a recent series of articles in the Globe that detailed systemic abuses, including guard-on-inmate violence and sexual misconduct by officers, may have been a contributing factor in the outbreak of fights.
"The series of articles may have put more edginess into the inmates as they may be reading about alleged brutality," he said. "That may be leading to more sensitive feelings among the inmates."
Lombardi said the violence began with a fight in late June and culminated Wednesday with the 13th clash that required guards to intervene.
None of the detainees suffered injuries in the clashes "other than bruises and scrapes," he said.
"We've had 15 officers since June with injuries, ranging from being punched in the face to one officer who injured his back and was out for about two weeks," he said. Another officer, who hurt his elbow breaking up a fight, has yet to return to work, Lombardi said.
The spokesman, citing privacy concerns, declined to release the names of the injured officers.
Lombardi said most of the fights occurred in common areas, outside the detainees' jail cells.
"Fighting in jail is a common occurrence," he said. "We have bad people. So you lock things down. You cool people off."
Lombardi said the jail is now at its full capacity, meaning detainees are housed three to a cell. "It's a seasonal thing when you have a full house," he said. "You bump into people. People just lose their patience."
The Suffolk County Sheriff's Department has been under fire for months amid allegations of brutality and sexual misconduct by its officers. On Thursday Rouse announced that he was overhauling his department, reassigning 19 officers and hiring two managers to head his own investigative division. The department is facing an investigation by an independent panel appointed by Acting Governor Jane Swift.
This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 7/14/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
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