O.T?...Prison Doors Opened by Themselves in Texas...

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About 30 minutes ago on the radio news...KLBJ 590AM Austin...they reported that around 3AM, that the locked doors of a prison in Texas (I think in Comal County) unlocked all by themselves releasing 80 prisoners...they didn't know how it happened...

I don't know if they managed to recapture all the prisoners...they said they "had it under control" now...

If I hear any more I will let you know...but the information will probably just get buried ...

-- Texas Terri (DeepintheHeart@Texas.com), December 20, 1999

Answers

Please send us a URL if you find something on the web.

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), December 20, 1999.

Wow. That would be the one in Kyle? The minimum-security one?

I can't even imagine the code that did this, if it was code that did it.

Thanks, Terri

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), December 20, 1999.


Here's the article in the Austin on-line local paper:

"Texas Inmates Take Over Cellblock

BEEVILLE, Texas (AP)--Dozens of inmates got out of their cells today and took over a cellblock until riot teams regained control four hours later, authorities said. Two guards were injured.

Eighty maximum security inmates of the McConnell Unit prison were believed to have ``manipulated their cell doors and gotten out,'' said Glen Castlebury of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Larry Todd, spokesman for the Texas Department of Corrections, said the inmates got out of their cells around 3 a.m. Prison riot teams moved in about 5 a.m. with tear gas and batons. By 7 a.m., authorities had full control restored.

``When the inmates came out of their cells, three officers were blocked from getting out of the area,'' Castlebury said. ``It was not a true hostage situation. But the officers managed to extricate themselves.''

One of the officers was taken to a hospital for treatment of cuts on his hands. Another was being treated for minor injuries at the prison infirmary.

Damage to the prison was described as minimal. Authorities did not immediately figure out how the prisoners managed to get out of their cells.

Todd said the unit has been ``tense'' since a correctional officer was stabbed to death Friday night.

Beeville is about 90 miles southeast of San Antonio."

-- Michelle (c@ntdo.it), December 20, 1999.


Just a thought - The jail control systems we did in Texas had an emergency unlock button on the control panel and are also interfaced with the fire alarm. It is very possible to have operator malfunction or a life safety alarm unlock all the doors.

It is also possible to trigger a master unlock while working on the system (please don't ask how I know - it's embarrassing !) but I don't think they would be doing that at 3:00 AM. Jail door locks fail secure and must be commanded, by applying voltage, to unlock. So I would think a processor failure in the door system would normally cause a system to loose electronic control by the guards. Back to the keys to unlock the doors.

-- Jim (jimed@iglobal.net), December 20, 1999.


Some prisons keep their doors locked with a
pneumatic system that is controlled by a
computer. If there was a glitch, the bolts
could easily be slid to one side with a
shank or other thin object. Maybe Porky in
CellBlockD has some hope yet.

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), December 20, 1999.


Last night at church, the wife of a prison guard at Tennessee Colony (the prison in Texas for the worst of the worst) told my wife that the guards are scared because if the electricity goes off they have no manual way to lock the cells.

We're not far from that prison (twenty five or thirty miles)so we are a little uneasy about that. Our electricity is from Trinity Valley Coop who buys from some company in Kentucky instead of Texas. We are way down on the priority scale if things go bad.

-- CAI (cai2k@flash.net), December 20, 1999.


Link to story about Oregon's prisons and the
pneumatic system.

Oregon's Prisons

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), December 20, 1999.


Time to make an investment in heavy chain and Master locks.

I live in an area that has three prisons (max, medium, and minimum security) and a county jail within 5 miles. All the more reason to practice shooting regularly. Plus make sure the canine early warning system is alert.

-- Powder (Powder@keg.com), December 20, 1999.


It would not surprise me if this was a result of a y2k failure that came early due to clock drift.

Did a fire detection system freak out when the numbers didn't add up, go into an undefined state, and unlock the cells?

I suspect we'll never find out.

I also also suspect we'll be seeing more and more things like this as the left hand of the time drift bell curve ramps up.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), December 20, 1999.


TV Channel 5 in Ft. Worth / Dallas ran a short item on the 10:00PM news about this story. They reported that the door to the control room was left unlocked and a inmate got inside and overpowered the guard. Then he unlocked the pod doors using the controls.

Sounds believeable to me since apparently only one area of the prison was involved.

BTW, the last drawings I looked at, some years ago, for a maximum security prison in Texas did not use microprocessors for the door control. Simple pushbuttons, relays and diodes.

-- Jim (jimed@iglobal.net), December 21, 1999.



TV Channel 5 in Ft. Worth / Dallas ran a short item on the 10:00PM news about this story. They reported that the door to the control room was left unlocked and a inmate got inside and overpowered the guard. Then he unlocked the pod doors using the controls.

Typical polly media spin. They're hopeless. They keep covering up the Y2K problems and hope they go away.

-- (media@polly.idiots), December 21, 1999.


> Typical polly media spin

What can I say ... you must be right.

hurumph.

-- Jim (jimed@iglobal.net), December 21, 1999.


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