Nunnawauk Meadows Residents To Discuss Garner Prison

By Andrew Gorosko

State Department of Correction (DOC) and town officials plan to meet with residents of Nunnawauk Meadows later this month to field questions which the residents of the elderly housing complex may have about the presence of the state’s high-security Garner Correctional Institution in their vicinity.

First Selectman Pat Llodra announced this week that she, Police Chief Michael Kehoe, and Garner Warden Scott Semple would meet with Nunnawauk Meadows residents at the housing complex at 3 Nunnawauk Road on March 17 to discuss issues stemming from the presence of Garner at 50 Nunnawauk Road. The rent-subsidized Nunnawauk Meadows contains 134 affordable apartments for the elderly on a 65-acre site adjacent to Fairfield Hills.

Ms Llodra spoke at the March 2 session of the Public Safety Committee for Garner Correctional Institution, an agency that meets quarterly to discuss public safety issues posed by the 245,000-square-foot prison which typically houses about 600 male inmates, a majority of whom have chronic mental health issues. As first selectman, Ms Llodra is the public safety panel’s chairman.

Ms Llodra recently toured the sprawling prison, which opened in November 1992. The first selectman described the prison as an impressive facility that is well managed. She expressed confidence in how Garner is operated by the DOC.

Town sentiment about the presence of Garner, however, was somewhat different during the first year of the prison’s operation.

The prison experienced inmate riots in April and in September of 1993. In August 1993, two inmates escaped from Garner in the nighttime. One man was quickly captured after he had injured his leg following his jumping from the prison roof. The other man, however, eluded police for two weeks as he went on a crime spree before eventually being captured in New Haven.

Garner is a Level 4 prison in a prison system in which the highest security is Level 5.

In other business at the March 2 committee session, Warden Semple told panel members that Garner housed 588 inmates on that day. Of that number, 421 prisoners were mental health inmates and the other 167 men were general population prisoners. Of those 167 prisoners, approximately 99 inmates were being held at Garner while awaiting trial on criminal charges, and thus are categorized as “unsentenced” prisoners.

In another matter, Warden Semple explained that Garner correction staff members held a specialized training session on February 26 in which the DOC’s “special operations” unit conducted inmate-control training exercises within a prison cellblock. Inmates living in that area were kept in an other section of the prison while that training session was underway, he said.

The team practiced with specialized weaponry, including ordnance, to test the effectiveness of such gear inside a prison cellblock, the warden said. State police observed the training exercises, he said.

Garner correction staffers conduct weekly training drills to maintain their effectiveness in responding to prison emergencies, he said.

In another matter, the two men who work as Garner’s deputy wardens under Warden Semple introduced themselves to committee members.

They are Richard Bartholomew and Timothy Farrell. Under a DOC restructuring that occurred last year, the prison reorganized its staffing to have two deputy wardens on duty, rather than the previous three people in such roles.

After serving as a deputy warden at Garner, Warden Semple became its top official last July when James Dzurenda was promoted from the position of Garner’s warden to the DOC’s southern district administrator.