DOC changes policies after officer slain
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — The state Department of Corrections is changing some of its procedures in response to the killing of a female guard at the Monroe prison last weekend.
Jayme Biendl was found strangled in the prison's chapel last Saturday night. An inmate has been arrested in the killing.
Corrections Secretary Eldon Vail said Friday that prisons immediately will begin counting staff members whenever an offender is missing; officers will begin regularly checking in on guards who serve at duty posts alone; and prisons will start conducting drills on the use of silent alarms on the hand-held radios that guards carry.
In addition, the department says it will no longer hold modified lockdowns once a month at the state's eight major prisons. The lockdowns coincided with furloughs of nonessential staff to save money. Spokesman Chad Lewis says that stopping the lockdowns will make the prisons safer because those nonessential staff members will be present.
Biendl had previously complained that she didn't feel safe working alone in the prison chapel.