CLALLAM BAY — The Clallam Bay Corrections Center officer who shot and killed an inmate attempting to escape in June returned to his post last week after being cleared of the shooting.
Sgt. Brad Hatt returned Monday to his job overseeing the maximum-security prison’s armory after spending about two months as an administrative assistant, said prison Superintendent Ron Fraker.
The Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office determined Aug. 15 the shooting was justified, he said, but Hatt couldn’t return to the job until cleared by a psychologist and the state Attorney General’s Office.
Ernest Barker, the corrections officer taken hostage during the escape attempt, remains on leave pending the completion of a mental evaluation, Fraker said.
Hatt fatally shot Kevin Newland on June 29 with a 12-gauge shotgun as the inmate rammed the perimeter fence with a forklift.
Newland, a convicted murderer, ignored a warning shot and verbal commands, according to prison officials and the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office, which investigated the incident.
Another inmate, Dominick Maldonado, who took Barker hostage, surrendered after Newland was shot.
“They did a tremendous job in a very critical, tense situation,” Fraker said of his staff.
Maldonado was transferred to the Stafford Creek Corrections Center near Aberdeen after the incident.
He is serving a 163-year sentence for a 2005 shooting rampage at Tacoma Mall that wounded seven people.
Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly said in an email Friday that she has not decided whether to file escape charges against him.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, Newland paused after Hatt fired a warning shot into the ground from the other side of the fence and made eye contact with the officer.
Yet he rammed the fence one more time and breached it before Hatt fatally shot him.
The report from the Sheriff’s Office references statements Newland made during his trial for murdering Spokane teenager Jamie Lynn Drake in 2006 about suicide.
It came to no conclusion as to whether that influenced his actions that day.
Fraker and Ron Cameron, chief criminal deputy with the Sheriff’s Office, said there’s no indication that Newland attempted the escape to impel officers to shoot him.
“Who knows what was going through his mind,” Cameron said, adding that the inmates didn’t leave any notes explaining their actions.
Since the escape attempt, the prison has reinforced the perimeter fences around vehicle gates with “heavy-duty” bollards, Fraker said.
Some state-mandated security changes are also being enacted at Clallam Bay, though they are in response to the death of Monroe Correctional Complex Officer Jayme Biendl in January.
As of Nov. 1, officers will be required to take their breaks at their posts.
The prison has also ordered radios that come with distress buttons and is providing sergeants with pepper spray.
Fraker said those changes, if enacted earlier, could have helped prevent the escape attempt or at least made it more difficult.
The inmates waited until one of the two officers supervising them took their lunch break before initiating their plan.
Requiring officers’ breaks be taken at their posts “would have, for the most part, kept two officers in that area at all times,” Fraker said.
Newland and Maldonado were among the 104 inmates working in the prison’s industries and laundry areas when the escape attempt occurred.
Maldonado took Barker hostage by holding a pair of scissors to his throat once Barker’s co-worker left for their break.
Industries Assistant Supervisor Denny Goudie saw what was happening and verbally sounded an alarm, according to the sheriff’s report.
Newland hit Goudie before the assistant supervisor broke free and notified the communication’s center of the incident.
After retrieving keys for a forklift chained to a wall from Barker, Newland rammed through a roll-up door and the two perimeter fences before being shot.
Fraker said the prison still has two officers supervising the industries area, though the number of inmates working there has been reduced to around 80.
That’s mainly due to new state requirements regarding which offenders can perform the work, which pays up to $1.60 an hour, he said.
“We’re going to try to keep it fairly close to that number just because it’s more manageable,” Fraker said.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.