Inmates Tries To Shank Kenneth Williams In the Miami Dade County Jail

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• published: 14 Aug 2013
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All at once, the cell doors slide open. Two inmates pop out with purpose. One strides down the hallway of the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, appearing to hand off or receive a weapon from a man in an adjacent cell. Moments later, those two inmates, plus another man, all apparently armed with homemade knives, confront a shirtless Kenneth Williams in the corner of a jail corridor. Realizing he's under attack, Williams bolts down the hallway of the top-tier maximum security wing of the West Miami-Dade jail. As the three pursuers close in, Williams pauses, hitches up his shorts and leaps from the second-story. The dramatic footage from internal jail surveillance cameras, obtained by The Miami Herald, shows the June 14 security breach that caused all the doors of K-81, a maximum-security dormitory-style wing, to open at once. The surveillance footage has raised suspicions that the inmates knew the doors would be opening, and that someone in the jail system may have triggered the "group release" feature in the jail's new computerized security system. The video does not show the instant when Williams crashes to the lower level. But it does show Williams howling in pain from a fractured vertebrae and broken ankle, as another inmate, Rafael Andres, comes to his aid, hovering over him to protect the man from would-be attackers. Williams, the video shows, appears to hand Andres a blade as the injured inmate clings to Andres' calf. Finally, corrections officers swarm the center common area, pushing wandering inmates back into their cells. Miami-Dade Corrections Director Tim Ryan said Monday that while "we want to be able to trust our staff," the department is investigating the role any officers might have played in the attack. "It is suspicious," Ryan acknowledged. Miami-Dade corrections officers pepper-sprayed the attackers and confiscated at least two homemade shanks. Williams, himself a reputed Liberty City gang member, was arrested for possession of a contraband blade. Prosecutors have the surveillance video and are reviewing the incident. The airing of the video comes at a sensitive time for Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation, which along with Jackson Health system has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks over complaints of shoddy medical care of inmates. The U.S. Department of Justice has also been overseeing efforts to reform the long-beleaguered jail system. On Friday, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez toured the county's psychiatric jail ward, which has for years been criticized for subpar care, and which has been the scene of two recent inmate deaths. Williams, through his lawyer, says jailers delayed taking him to a hospital. A jail nurse — in a sworn affidavit sent to Jackson Health, which provides medical care for the jails — alleged Williams spent more than 30 hours in pain because there was no staff available to take him to a hospital. In the wake of recent turmoil, the head administrator of Jackson's corrections medical services and its lead doctor resigned. Another jail medical services staffer, health services administrator Mary Mites-Campbell, resigned Friday. Jackson CEO Carlos Migoya is assembling a team to revamp medical care at the jails. As for the security gaffe, corrections investigators are looking at the computerized control panel that controls access to the sliding doors at TGK, part of an ongoing $1.4 million security upgrade by Black Creek Integrated Systems.