By Paul Hammel, Nebraska Examiner
LINCOLN — A 27-year-old inmate at Nebraska’s state prison in Tecumseh is dead following what officials said were fires intentionally set by prisoners Thursday evening.
Jesse Spencer, who was serving a 12- to 20-year sentence for various assault and theft convictions, was found unresponsive inside his cell after prison staff responded to the fires.
A press release from the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services said Spencer was one of five inmates who intentionally set fires inside their cells at about 6 p.m. Thursday.
Inmates refused orders
When staff responded, the inmates initially refused staff directives to come out of their cells.
Eventually, the agency said, three inmates complied, but two others, including Spencer, continued to refuse.
When staff members went in to get Spencer, he was found unresponsive in his cell. Efforts to revive him were not successful.
Staff members extinguished the fires before local fire crews arrived at the prison just north of Tecumseh.
No other housing units at the prison were impacted. Two staff members were examined at the Tecumseh hospital following the incident.
Assaults in same housing unit
The death and fires follow an incident Sept. 30 in which an inmate allegedly assaulted multiple staff members. Two staffers were seriously injured and required medical treatment.
The fires were set in another gallery of the same housing unit where the assaults occurred but involved different inmates, a corrections spokeswoman said.
The Tecumseh prison, a 960-bed facility for medium- and maximum-security inmates, has been the site of two deadly incidents in recent years.
In 2017, two inmates were killed when inmates went on a rampage in one housing unit after refusing staff directives.
In 2015, a riot broke out when a staff member unsuccessfully tried to break up a gathering of inmates in the exercise yard. Two inmates were killed, four were injured, and a housing unit was burned and ransacked during a disturbance that took several hours to bring under control.
Staffing problems at Tecumseh
Nebraska has one of the most overcrowded prison systems in the country, housing about 1,600 more inmates than the system was designed to house.
But at Tecumseh, overcrowding has not been the issue. A lack of staff has plagued the rural institution since it opened in 2001.
About 80 corrections officers are bused in daily from Omaha to ensure that the prison posts are filled. A “staffing emergency” has been in effect at Tecumseh for several months, which resulted in cutbacks on inmate activities and visits from relatives and friends.
Spencer’ began his prison sentence in September 2014. He was serving just over 12 years to 20 years on charges out of Gage, Johnson and Lancaster Counties that included second-degree assault, assault by a confined person, theft, terroristic threats and criminal mischief.
The agency said a modified lockdown at Tecumseh is in effect after the fires Thursday. State law requires a grand jury investigation any time someone dies in police, jail or prison custody.