One senator stood up Friday morning to talk about Thursday's riot at Tecumseh State Correctional Institution and released a cascade of frustration about problems at Nebraska's prisons.
Sen. Dan Watermeier of Syracuse was at Tecumseh Thursday night, he said, walking through the administration building and talking to Corrections workers. He said the response from the prison Thursday was better than two years ago in that no officers were hurt, it was contained more quickly and staff followed protocol.
During those hours after Corrections officers backed out of the housing unit and confined inmates inside, however, two men were killed: Damon Fitzgerald, 39, and Michael Galindo, 31.
Watermeier said it took only seven hours from the start of the disturbance to a news conference at the prison to detail what happened.
"That didn't happen two years ago," he said. "That tells quite a bit."
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Senators on the Department of Correctional Services Special Investigative Committee then stood up to object to Watermeier's characterization and to voice their concerns about problems still existing in the state's prisons.
Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks, who last year chaired the investigative committee, said she thought no one on it would have been surprised about what happened Thursday.
"Sorry? Yes. Terrified for people? Yes. But surprised? I don't think so," she said. "And if we continue to sugarcoat something like this, refusing to call it a riot, it's a crisis."
Problems facing the Corrections Department are directly related, without exception, to the lack of funding and resources, Pansing Brooks said. Problems have stemmed from staff shortages, inadequate pay for officers, staff assaults, adequate programming and social activities for inmates.
The next two-year budget being crafted by the Legislature includes increased funding for the department to deal with some of those issues.Ìý
Lincoln Sen. Adam Morfeld, who served on the investigative committee, said he is frustrated that concerns about the department coming from the Legislature are often downplayed and he has failed to see decisive action that should be taken to ensure public safety.
"Any time that there is a fire in a public institution that has been taken over violently, public safety is at risk," he said. "Any time that two individuals that are in the care of the state of Nebraska are killed and murdered in the institution that we manage, public safety is at risk."
Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers said no investigation of the Thursday incident has been done yet, and it is inappropriate for Watermeier, Gov. Pete Ricketts and Corrections Director Scott Frakes to say, "Don't worry about this. It's not a big thing, the staff behaved flawlessly."
"When you have this kind of confusion, nothing is done flawlessly," Chambers said.
Frakes issued a statement Thursday night saying the staff handled the situation "extremely well," limiting the incident to what he called a small number of participants -- about 40 inmates -- and minimal damage. The public's safety was never compromised, he said.
"There is no need to downplay what happened and pretend that something other than what happened took place," Chambers said.
Lincoln Sen. Matt Hansen said the riot was more than unfortunate, as it was described by Watermeier.
"It is unacceptable," he said. "I do not know how we as a state can inspire confidence in our justice system on any step in the line from police to prosecutors to defense attorneys to judges if we cannot provide minimum safety for people in the correctional system."
Sen. Steve Halloran of Hastings said none of the senators was at Tecumseh when the disturbance happened.
"So far, all I've heard is a lot of posturing from people that seem to think Corrections facilities are a preschool," he said. "It's a dangerous job. ... And I, for one, am just simply willing to wait for an investigation so that we know the facts."
Omaha Sen. Bob Krist said that although Frakes and Ricketts did not create the problems in the prisons -- they came from a lack of investment over a 20-year period, he said. "(But) this governor and this Legislature own this situation."
The ACLU of Nebraska's talk of litigation is not a threat, he said.
"It is real. ... It is now," he said.