3 inmates shot inside top-security wing of jail

February 2, 2006

BY LISA DONOVAN Staff Reporter

Three inmates were shot inside a maximum security wing of the Cook County Jail at 26th and California on Wednesday night, and investigators were busy trying to find the triggerman and determine how the gun made it inside the facility.

"Obviously we don't know right now how it was smuggled in the jail -- that's the subject of an internal affairs investigation," said Bill Cunningham, spokesman for the Cook County sheriff's office, which runs the jail.

The injured, including a murder suspect, a kidnapping suspect and another inmate serving time for a weapons conviction, were at local hospitals and expected to survive their wounds, said Cunningham.

The incident happened about 10:30 p.m, shortly after the officer guarding Division 11, which includes 50 inmates, had taken a final head count for the night and had gone to turn in some related paperwork at a nearby office. When the officer returned, he smelled smoke coming from a cell. When the guard went to investigate, he found three wounded cellmates and a gun -- a .38 snub-nosed revolver -- lying on the floor, officials said.

The injured men include a 27-year-old inmate, in jail for an unlawful use of a weapon conviction, taken to St. Anthony Hospital with a graze wound to the right elbow; a 28-year-old inmate, being held without bond on aggravated kidnapping and armed robbery charges, taken to Stroger Hospital for a wound to the left calf, and a 27-year-old man, being held in lieu of $700,000 bond for a murder charge, taken to Mount Sinai Hospital for a gunshot wound to the left thigh.