State officers at the moment are confirming that the loss of life of an inmate on the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison final December got here following an assault by one other inmate, and insiders say violent inmate assaults proceed to happen.
After receiving a tip late final month about latest assaults on the jail, the president for the union representing state jail employees was in a position to affirm to Mississippi Valley Publishing not solely a number of the circumstances surrounding that inmate’s loss of life, but in addition {that a} string of assaults on jail guards have occurred in latest months.
Inmate Dies Following Assault
On Dec. 30, the Iowa Division of Corrections (DOC) issued a press launch asserting the loss of life of Gregory Showalter Sr.
Showalter died at 6:15 p.m. Dec. 28 on the College of Iowa Well being Care Medical Middle. He was 64 years outdated on the time of his loss of life.
Showalter was accused of fatally beating and strangling his spouse, Helen Showalter, 60, of Ottumwa, whose physique was discovered within the Des Moines River in August 2021.
In September 2023, Showalter was convicted by a jury in Wapello County of first-degree homicide, abuse of a corpse, willful injury-causing severe harm, and home abuse assault-impending air/blood circulation inflicting bodily harm. He was sentenced to life in jail with out parole.
Showalter started serving his sentence in October 2023.
However in response to Todd Copley, President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Staff (AFSCME) Council 61, the union representing jail employees in Fort Madison, there was extra to Showalter’s loss of life than the Iowa DOC said of their press launch asserting his passing.
“What the press launch failed to say was that he was crushed by one other inmate within the dietary division at (Iowa State Penitentiary) and was taken to UIHC on December nineteenth,” Copley lately advised Mississippi Valley Publishing, including that Showalter died after he was taken off of life assist on Dec. 29.
The Iowa Division of Legal Investigation (DCI) is investigating Showalter’s loss of life and the inmate believed to be liable for the assault is awaiting fees, in response to Copley.
When contacted about Showalter’s loss of life, the Iowa Division of Public Security (DPS) confirmed that the DOC requested the DCI examine the incident.
“As that is nonetheless an energetic investigation, we aren’t in a position to remark additional,” Iowa DPS mentioned of their assertion.
Court docket information present Showalter was attempting to attraction his conviction on the time of his loss of life.
Current Assaults Confirmed
Showalter’s assault and loss of life is not the one report of violence occurring on the Iowa State Penitentiary in latest months.
“We’ve membership inside each correctional facility within the State of Iowa, however I not often get any info apart from ISP,” Copley mentioned.
“However I can inform you that assaults are just about a day by day incidence all through the state’s services.
“I held a press convention on the State Capitol final fall, and at the moment, there was an officer assault each 37 hours someplace within the state.
“I discover it very arduous to consider that that quantity has come down an excessive amount of since then, which is alarming.
“With the climate finally getting hotter quickly, I can solely assume that the assaults will improve that hourly price.”
In keeping with Copley, employees on the jail have reported the next incidents in latest months:
- On Nov. 16, 2024, a employees member was assaulted and that worker was required to endure knee surgical procedure.
- On or round Feb. 1, 2025, an inmate assaulted a female and male officers, inflicting each to be taken to the hospital for medical therapy.
- On Feb. 24, 2025, an officer was assaulted and despatched to the hospital for facial cuts in addition to a concussion.
Mississippi Valley Publishing reached out to the Iowa DOC for touch upon Showalter’s loss of life and people more moderen assaults, however they declined to remark.
“The Iowa Division of Corrections doesn’t touch upon open investigations or personnel issues,” they wrote in an electronic mail.
A Historical past of Violence
However these incidents come after it was reported in September that two correctional officers have been assaulted by a prisoner.
Throughout that incident, one officer suffered facial fractures and needed to be transported by ambulance to the hospital for his accidents.
The second officer was stabbed by the inmate roughly 11 occasions with a bit of metallic that had been damaged off from the inmate’s desk inside his cell.
However that officer solely suffered minor scrapes and cuts, in response to Copley.
“It was an eight and a half inch piece of metallic,” Copley mentioned of the shank. “It was not sharpened to the purpose the place it might puncture pores and skin. It bought a scratch however when he took the inmate down he did harm his elbow. He busted that open fairly good, however nothing severe.”
In February 2023, Copley mentioned ISP employees made a request to have the identical desks that the inmate used to make that shank swapped out of the cells.
However in June 2024, regardless of experiences that jail employees have been discovering metallic lacking from these desks, Copley mentioned jail officers refused to pay $8,000 to have the desks switched out for one thing safer.
The assault was harking back to the 2021 assault on the Anamosa State Penitentiary that left two jail employees lifeless and an inmate severely injured.
Throughout that incident, inmates Michael Dutcher and Thomas Woodard bludgeoned correctional officer Robert McFarland and jail nurse Lorena Schulte to loss of life with hammers as the 2 prisoner have been making a failed escape try.
A 3rd inmate, McKinley Roby, was additionally attacked with a hammer by one of many different two inmates, obtained a number of cranium fractures, and spent months recovering from his accidents.
Dutcher and Woodard each pleaded responsible to first-degree homicide fees and obtained life sentences later in 2021.
The households of McFarland and Schulte have lawsuits in opposition to the state and Iowa Division of Corrections staff for negligence and wrongful loss of life.
Within the aftermath of the September assault, AFSCME 61 leaders have been fast to name the assaults “symptomatic of an ongoing disaster” in Iowa’s state-run prisons, blamed Governor Kim Reynolds for exacerbating the issue by an absence of management, and said the the assaults weren’t an remoted incident however a “rising pattern of violence within the state’s correctional services.”
“This isn’t remoted to only Fort Madison,” Copley mentioned on the time. “It is on the level the place it is virtually a weekly incidence at both one penitentiary or one other.”
In keeping with knowledge from Copley, from Sept. 25, 2023 by the top of September 2024, a complete of 152 assaults in opposition to correctional officers have been counted all through all Iowa prisons.
Of these numbers, 42 of these assault incidents occurred on the Iowa State Penitentiary, with three of the assaults resulting in severe accidents, 24 thought of non-serious accidents, and 15 of the assaults ensuing from substances being thrown on jail employees.
And throughout the final 10 years, ISP employees assaults totals are as follows:
• 2014 – 20
• 2015 – 18
• 2016 – 10
• 2017 – 8
• 2018 – 6
• 2019 – 6
• 2020 – 14
• 2021 – 25
• 2022 – 39
• 2023 – 28
• 2024 – 34
Harmful Circumstances
Presently, the Iowa State Penitentiary homes rather less than 800 inmates with roughly 400-500 employees (together with assist employees) working on the jail.
Copley mentioned in September that it’s not unusual for as few as one to 3 guards to supervise as many as 100-300 inmates on any given day.
On the time of the September assault, it was reported that six officers have been overseeing over 50 inmates within the pod the assault occurred (however these six employees members have been additionally answerable for round 200 inmates for the whole housing unit).
Round that very same time final September, an inmate made an escape try, climbing the fence within the jail’s yard and making his approach by barbed wire into the world between fencing earlier than guards have been in a position to seize him.
“The fence itself is possibly 10 ft, however he was in a position to climb excessive of it, there’s razor wire there, he bought reduce up, and he bought into what we name principally ‘no-man’s-land,’ the place inmates will not be allowed to be,” in response to one employees member who spoke situation of anonymity on the time.
It took that escapee roughly six minutes to climb the fence and make his approach to the stockade gates.
“The stockade officer noticed him, put out a name, and inside seconds our perimeter car have been there, employees have been there, and we had him in restraints,” the employees member mentioned. “We had a weapon drawn on him, so if want be, they might have shot him however they did not must. Employees responded rapidly sufficient.”
Frustrations Proceed
These incidents final fall highlighted frustrations employees on the jail have had for a while now with what they deem because the Iowa DOC’s lack of transparency and harmful working situation.
There may be additionally ongoing anger amongst some jail employees with the state’s 2017 collective bargaining legislation, which made sweeping modifications to the state’s collective bargaining proper for public sector employees and took away most unions’ (besides police and fireplace) rights to discount over medical insurance, seniority, layoffs, transfers, due deductions, and extra, and in addition stopped classifying jail correctional officers as public security staff.
Different frustrations have included pay charges, which some employees consider remains to be not excessive sufficient given the circumstances contained in the jail and, in some instances, are decrease in comparison with neighboring states; the standard of candidates for jail employees positions; and total security issues all through Iowa’s prisons, which, in flip, some employees members consider continues to make it tough to search out sufficient guards and assist employees.
“After I bought the decision (concerning the assault in September), and I did not hear it from anybody with the administration, I heard it from employees,” Copley mentioned final fall.
“And if you get these calls, you suppose ‘Jesus God please inform me that no person bought killed’…These individuals go to work each day for between $50-$68K a yr not realizing if they’ll come each night time…
“These employees are making our streets protected by ensuring these individuals do not get out, and so they’re public security whether or not the Governor needs to consider that or not. And so they’re not very appreciated by the legislature…
“Our Correctional Officers throughout the state of Iowa are being requested to work beneath harmful, understaffed, and under-resourced circumstances, and we’re not seeing the management we want from the Governor’s workplace to deal with these points.”
State Officers Reply
In response to the September assault, Governor Reynolds’ workplace issued an announcement, writing:
“Making certain a protected and safe setting at Iowa correctional services is a high precedence for Governor Reynolds.
“In 2021, the Iowa Division of Corrections commissioned a complete evaluation of jail security and safety by an impartial third occasion and since then has carried out numerous security and safety enhancements to incorporate a brand new Director of Prisoner Operations, know-how enhancements, 85 new positions, Ok-9 groups, and extra safety coaching.
“The Iowa Division of Corrections constantly assesses and upgrades safety protocols – together with following an investigation of any safety incident – to successfully handle threat inside their services.”
It’s unknown right now if any statewide reforms will probably be enacted all through Iowa’s jail anytime quickly, however some native legislators have lately said they might be open to supporting modifications on the ISP.
Throughout a legislative discussion board at hosted by The Lee County Financial Growth Group final month, State Senator Jeff Reichman (R-Montrose) mentioned he would assist efforts by ISP employees to discount for a better paying contract as a person jail and separate from what different jail employees could also be in search of different services all through the state.
“Fort Madison is clearly a a lot harder place than some others, and they need to be compensated extra for it,” Reichman mentioned.
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“Fort Madison is clearly a a lot harder place than some others, and they need to be compensated extra for it,” Reichman mentioned.
