Authorities investigate 'disturbance'
By Joey Pitchford
Published in News on October 27, 2016 10:07 AM
A multi-agency investigation into a disturbance at Neuse Correctional Institution Sunday night is under way, and new details on the incident remain scant.
The disturbance resulted in at least two assaults, two fires being set at the prison and the evacuation of 500 inmates out of a total 788.
Windows were also broken and four dorms were damaged during the mayhem.
Prison officials remain quiet on what caused the incident that lasted nearly four hours -- from 4:30 to 8:15 p.m. -- before being brought under control.
"Everything remains under investigation," said North Carolina Department of Public Safety spokesperson Pamela Walker.
The two people who were known to be assaulted Sunday night were an inmate and a corrections officer.
The inmate, 25-year-old Tristan Phillips, is serving a one-year and one-month sentence for felony possession of a controlled substance, according to North Carolina Department of Public Safety records.
Police reports show Phillips was assaulted by three other inmates around 5:10 p.m. Sunday.
Paris Michael Collins, the 34-year-old officer who was assaulted, has worked with the DPS since 2010, Walker said.
Collins was not assaulted by Phillips, and Walker could not say which inmate involved in Sunday night's disturbance assaulted the corrections officer.
She said Phillips' and Collins' assaults were not directly what caused Sunday night's fires and disturbance.
"That was just one part of it," Walker said, declining to provide further details about what caused the incident. "That's one variable they're researching as to the root cause of it."
No charges have been leveled against any of the inmates involved in the brouhaha, Walker said.
She and other officials continue to dowplay the incident, insisting it was a "disturbance" rather than a riot.
What began as a few disorderly inmates escalated into what some characterized as a riot at the facility.
By 7:30 p.m., law enforcement had blocked off access to Stevens Mill Road outside the minimum security state prison, turning back all non-law enforcement vehicles attempting to drive past.
One of the jail buildings had multiple small fires smoldering inside it, visible from the road. Smoke billowed up forming a cloud over the facility, backlit by what appeared to be every light in the facility flooding its grounds.
At the end of the night, officials said inmates had lit a fire in the prison's storage shed, which was a total loss, and the diagnostics building.
Walker said officials do not yet have a dollar amount estimation of the total damage at the prison.
Jail staff contained the inmates in a large group near the rear of the property Sunday night. The sounds of their chants and shouts mixed together with barking dogs and the constantly-ringing prison alarm.
As News-Argus reporters approached the rear of the prison from near the train tracks that run parallel to the property, they were told to leave the area by law enforcement closer to the facility.
Soon afterward a crowd of onlookers began to gather with cell phone cameras handy, and armed law enforcement officers moved them out of the area and sent reporters to wait at a nearby State Employees Credit Union for more information.
Walker said as of Wednesday afternoon she does not know if charges have been filed against any inmates involved in Sunday night's disturbance, which officials have stopped short of calling a riot.
She added the investigation is being conducted by the prison, the Goldsboro Police Department and the State Bureau of Investigation.
The evacuation of the facility began at about 1:30 a.m. Monday, when more than a dozen buses began taking inmates to other locations.
Walker said the prison's primary function is to process new inmates or to house those with short sentences.
The portion of the prison that was not affected by the events of Sunday evening will return to normal operations and the state's Prison Emergency Response Team will remain at the site for security purposes.
This morning's incident marks the second time the prison has been evacuated this month.
Inmates were evacuated Oct. 10 due to flood waters from Hurricane Matthew and taken to two separate prisons in the western part of the state.
The inmates returned to Neuse Correctional Institution on Oct. 20.