Convicted killer dead, seven inmates injured as rival gangs brawl in Stony Mountain exercise yard

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/07/2023 (840 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A 33-year-old convicted killer is dead after a riot broke out in Stony Mountain Institution’s exercise yard Monday evening.

Corrections officers used live ammunition to break up the brawl; another inmate was sent to hospital with a gunshot wound.

Colton Patchinose, 33, was pronounced dead shortly after RCMP officers from the Stonewall detachment arrived at the federal prison north of Winnipeg at 6:35 p.m. to help deal with the “large fight” that involved several “edged weapons.”

The prairie region president of the union that represents corrections officers said the officers fired multiple rounds as warning shots to try to quell the chaos that broke out before 6:30 p.m., striking an inmate, who remains in hospital.

“There was an outright riot,” Union of Canadian Correctional Officers official James Bloomfield told the Free Press Tuesday.

Bloomfield said an estimated 30 inmates were directly involved in the brawl, using homemade knives and spikes and blunt force weapons and “anything they could grab a hold of in that yard” to fight each other.

“There was warning shots that were fired. That is not something that we do very often and it got to a point where there were several warning shots fired,” he said. “We did deploy a lot of pepper spray last night, as well, to try to get that group under control and get it all back to a safe place today.”

Bloomfield said about 100 inmates were in the yard at the time.

“There was incidents going on at all points of the yard… 30-ish were directly involved in the absolute violence and then there were a lot of extra (inmates) around that were not as violent as the stabbings and the murder,” he said. “There was a lot of assaulting going on, as well.”

Seven inmates were injured in the melee and rushed to hospital after corrections officers assessed them at the scene. One of the injured men was airlifted in serious condition by a STARS helicopter and taken to Health Sciences Centre.

Bloomfield said multiple inmates were stabbed.

“We did call in our emergency response team right away, there was five or six ambulances that responded from the area and the city, and both STARS air ambulances responded,” he said.

Corrections officers are working to determine who or what exactly sparked the riot, Bloomfield said, but the battle involved two rival gangs.

“Definitely gang violence — that’s what this is about, it is fuelled by the drug trade within the institution,” he said. “This is what that results in, it is one of the most violent institutions in this country.”

The union has been trying to push federal corrections officials to address violence and the drug trade in the prison but has not had “much luck,” he said.

RCMP major crimes and forensics officers are investigating, along with prison officials, federal corrections officials said in a news release. Patchinose’s next of kin were notified of his death, officials said.

He was serving an indeterminate sentence, the Correctional Service of Canada said, after being convicted in April 2011 of three counts each of first-degree murder and attempted murder with a firearm.

He and other co-accused barged into a home on Alexander Avenue in Winnipeg in March 2008 with a handgun and opened fire in an ambush. Patchinose wrongly believed someone inside the home was responsible for an attack about 10 days earlier that left him suffering stab wounds, court heard at the time.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

Biidaajimowin | News from the Centre

Wednesdays

Sent weekly from the heart of Turtle Island, an exploration of Indigenous voices, perspectives and experiences.

Sign up for Biidaajimowin | News from the Centre

Sign Up

I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

Scott Lavallee, 31, Jennifer Ward, 26, and Corey Keeper, 22, died after being struck at close range by at least eight of the 19 bullets fired that night in 2008.

Patchinose was also convicted of aggravated assault in 2012 for an attack at Milner Ridge provincial jail, which occurred while he was awaiting trial for the murders.

Bloomfield said that no prison staff were physically injured in Monday’s violence, but some officers could be traumatized.

“The union’s focus… right now is to ensure that our members are supported through the mental-health situation,” he said.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Erik Pindera
Reporter

Erik Pindera is a reporter for the Free Press, mostly focusing on crime and justice. The born-and-bred Winnipegger attended Red River College Polytechnic, wrote for the community newspaper in Kenora, Ont. and reported on television and radio in Winnipeg before joining the Free Press in 2020.  Read more about Erik.

Every piece of reporting Erik produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.