Beaten Coyote Ridge inmate's condition upgraded to serious

By Joe Chapman, Herald staff writer

A Pasco man reportedly beaten by his prison cellmate this week was targeted for trying to turn his life around and do the right thing, his sister told the Herald.

Harborview Medical Center in Seattle upgraded Scott William McDonald's condition to serious Wednesday, two days after his cellmate, Kenneth Smith, allegedly beat him with a smudge pot inside a pillowcase.

The attack happened Monday at Coyote Ridge Corrections Center in Connell.

"The family feels and knows Scott is on the road to living for the Lord," said his sister, Laurie Ingram of Pasco, reading from prepared remarks. "He was reaching out to many people and the chaplain at Coyote Ridge.

"Everyone at Coyote Ridge, the workers there, respected him. In the midst of his transformation, his jail mate ... decided to stop him."

McDonald, 45, is a large man with a large rap sheet. He was sentenced in August 2007 to eight years in prison for attempted first-degree robbery and an additional four years and three months for second-degree escape. His record from 1982 to 2007 included nine felony convictions.

But his sentences had been shortened by about three years because of credit for good behavior.

Ingram said McDonald wasn't a threat to other inmates.

"No, Scott was not a bully," she said.

She received positive feedback about him from guards who were in his room at Kadlec Regional Medical Center, where he was taken from Coyote Ridge. One guard spoke well of McDonald, as did others, Ingram said.

"They said he was very well behaved and very smart. He said it how it was, and they like that. He was very honest," she said.

She admitted McDonald has done many wrong things in his life.

"Everyone has addicts, alcoholics in their family," she said. "... That was all out of his system once he was in there."

McDonald has six siblings, including Ingram and a brother who is a Pasco paramedic. Their father also lives in Pasco, and their mother is deceased.

Most of the family traveled to Seattle to be with McDonald at the hospital. The relatives have been talking to him and holding his hand, but he hasn't been awake or able to speak, Ingram said. He has started to respond to his pain, she said.

He has wounds all over his head, from multiple blows, she said. From the scope of the injuries, which Ingram said appeared to include a stab wound, she said she suspected there were more objects in the pillowcase than just the smudge pot.

He didn't have any other wounds except one to his hand which he probably got when he tried to protect his head, she said. That led her to believe he was asleep when he was attacked, she said.

McDonald and Smith had been at Coyote Ridge since April. They were two of about 465 long-term minimum- and medium-security inmates moved into two units of the $190 million prison expansion completed last year.

When the corrections department completes the transition into the expansion, it will house 2,048 prisoners in addition to the capacity at the original Coyote Ridge facility, which currently houses about 300 minimum-security prisoners.

The department will conduct a critical review of the alleged assault, using personnel from other prisons, said Dan Pacholke, deputy director of the department's prisons division. The review will gather information about what led to the incident, what exactly happened, and the response to it.

The results could have impacts on procedures, training and policies pertaining to items in cells, Pacholke said.

A smudge pot, used to burn incense and sage in some religious ceremonies, can be approved for use in inmates' cells. But Pacholke didn't know whether McDonald or Smith had been approved to have one.

"Certainly we will question the smudge pot and its existence," he said.

Although state budget constraints have prompted the corrections department to work to cut operating costs, staffing levels at Coyote Ridge were adequate for the size of the prison population, Pacholke said.

He acknowledged there's a higher risk of prisoner problems during a transition like the one happening at Coyote Ridge because there are new employees and programs.

But early indications are that the prison staff and medical personnel responded appropriately to the incident, Pacholke said.

There's also a greater risk of problems in a medium-security facility than a minimum-security one, but assaults still are rare, he said.

A committee of Franklin County, Connell and other local officials had feared opening such a large medium-security prison would add cost burdens to their jurisdictions, in part because of the greater risk of prisoner assaults that would come with keeping a nastier crowd there.

Connell Police Chief Michael Kessler, whose department investigated the alleged assault and forwarded its report to the county prosecutor, said this assault coming so soon into the expansion's operation validates that concern.

"It's a glimpse of things to come, in my opinion," Kessler said.

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Thursday, Jul. 02, 2009

Beaten Coyote Ridge inmate's condition upgraded to serious

By Joe Chapman, Herald staff writer