Paul Egan

Detroit Free Press

LANSING — Records obtained under Michigan's Freedom of Information Act show prison officials debated the wording of a controversial news release they issued about a Sept. 10 disturbance at Kinross Correctional Facility, which began with prisoners “marching peacefully,” and in one near-final draft described damage to the Upper Peninsula prison as “minimal.”

In reality, damage included at least one fire, smashed windows and sinks, busted-out walls, damage to telephones and other communications equipment, trashed files and graffiti, the records show. One unit was left unlivable for several days. Though nobody was injured, more than 100 emergency response team officers, armed with shotguns and pepper spray guns, stormed the housing units and zip-tied the wrists of nearly all of the more than 1,200 inmates.

The department's public disclosures about the incident sparked an internal controversy, with corrections officers saying it was Michigan's first prison riot since 1981, and that officials temporarily lost control of the facility; while prison managers insist there was no loss of control and the disturbance should not be described as a riot.

► Kinross inmate:Raid with pepper spray sparked vandalism

E-mails obtained by the Free Press show there was an internal debate about the contents of a news release the Corrections Department sent out at about 10:40 p.m. on Sept. 10, after calm was restored.

“Does the tone of this match what we had to do tonight?” asked Corrections Department legislative liaison Kyle Kaminski, after the draft news release was circulated among top prison officials.

“I think we need to be clear that these are not sympathetic characters and their actions are not something that should be viewed as anything other than destructive and dangerous for staff and other prisoners.”

Corrections Department Director Heidi Washington said she “didn’t want to get into specifics” in the news release. “This has been ongoing for over 12 hours and (the news media) haven’t picked up (on) it yet,” she said in an e-mail to prison spokesman Chris Gautz, after Kaminski’s e-mail was sent to her.

“I don’t want to send a flare up now that makes a huge public issue.”

After some back and forth, the news release went out much as it was drafted, with one significant revision from Washington: “Just remove the word minimal," to describe the damage, "and then it is good to go," she told Gautz.

Gautz on Friday pegged the Kinross damage estimate at $77,000 and said it might have been higher except officials were able to salvage fixtures from a nearby prison to replace some of those that were damaged.

When the release was sent out, details were still emerging, Gautz said. When he drafted the release describing damage as "minimal," he had only seen photos of one smashed window and some damaged sinks, he said. Washington was apparently privy to more up-to-date information when she suggested the late change, he said.

As for the news release starting with about 400 inmates holding a peaceful march early in the day, Gautz said he wanted to get something released to the news media as quickly as possible and it was easiest to do that by describing events chronologically. He said it was better to give too little information and add to it later than to give too much information and risk some of it being factually incorrect.

Also, though the department attempts to block prisoner access to TV and other media reports about such instances, there's always a risk a report could slip through and "they see prisoners doing something at one facility ... and having everybody try to mimic that."

Inmates have told the Free Press prisoners returned to their housing units after the yard demonstration and vandalism didn't start until armed emergency response team officials entered the housing units to try to remove identified ringleaders to move them to higher-security prisons. Department managers have confirmed that, though corrections officers say the housing units remained unruly prior to the raid.

"My understanding is that the destruction was after the squads came in," Washington said in one Sept. 10 e-mail.

Kaminski said in an e-mail the news release should make that clear.

"I don't think we want to have it reported the other way (damage first, then our action) because it will make it seem like we are lying to defend our actions," Kaminski wrote.

"Our actions were entirely justifiable and in response certain prisoners caused damage, which is never justified."

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.