70% of Spokane-area prison is COVID-19-positive wenatcheeworld.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wenatcheeworld.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Seventy percent of Airway Heights Corrections Center’s inmate population have tested positive for COVID-19 and almost all those cases were recorded this month.
Seventy percent of Airway Heights Corrections Centerâs inmate population have tested positive for COVID-19 and almost all those cases were recorded this month.
Thatâs 1,307 prisoners who have tested positive. Airway Heights is one of a dozen state prisons, but cases there account for a third of all the cases among all Washington state prisoners. On top of that 155 staff members at the prison have tested positive.
One Airway Heights inmate died last week. The Department of Corrections has not posted the number of inmates hospitalized from the West Plains facility.
When less than a third had tested positive in early December, inmate Tobin Sather described âdecayingâ conditions. In the gym where the sick were housed, 145 COVID-positive men shared four toilets, according to the Department of Corrections.
KXLY
December 23, 2020 3:53 PM Emily Oliver
AIRWAY HEIGHTS, Wash. A COVID-19 outbreak continues to grow at the Airway Heights Corrections Center, where a total of 1,307 inmates have now tested positive for the virus.
Additionally, 155 staff have tested positive for COVID-19. The outbreak is by far the largest at any corrections facility in the state of Washington.
Just last week, the Department of Corrections confirmed the first inmate at the prison died from the virus while being treated at a separate healthcare facility. Family members of inmates have reached out to 4 News Now in recent weeks, worried about the treatment of their loved ones who had tested positive.
This story was originally published on Aug. 29, 2020.
An investigation by the Washington State Patrol released Friday found no evidence that prison staff played a role in the death of an inmate at Airway Heights Corrections Center, or that the victim or his cellmate, the accused killer, had tried to warn staff about a possible conflict.
The report is the result of an independent investigation into the events that led to the beating death of convicted child rapist Robert Munger at the Spokane County prison.
Its conclusions directly challenge claims by the accused cellmate, Shane Goldsby, that he tried at least twice to alert prison staff about the risks of sharing a cell with Munger because Goldsby is the brother of one of Mungerâs victims.