MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A counselor at Wisconsin’s troubled youth prison has been declared brain-dead following a fight with a 16-year-old inmate, the county coroner said Wednesday, less than three weeks after prosecutors filed criminal charges against a warden and multiple staffers in connection with two maximum security inmates' deaths.
Corey Proulx, 49, was declared brain-dead Tuesday so the family could proceed with organ donation, Lincoln County Coroner Valerie Caylor said.
Prosecutors charged the inmate in adult court on Wednesday with second-degree reckless homicide, felony murder-battery and two counts of battery by a prisoner. He could face up to 58 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
Online court records show Lincoln County Circuit Judge Galen Bayne-Allison set a $100,000 cash bond for him. A call to his attorney, listed in online court records as public defender Jessica Fehrenbach, rang unanswered on Wednesday afternoon.
The Associated Press is not naming the inmate because his attorneys could try to move the case into juvenile court, where proceedings are secret.
State Rep. Michael Schraa, chair of the Assembly’s corrections committee, issued a statement Wednesday questioning whether the Department of Corrections is operating in “crisis mode.” He promised to to hold a hearing on the agency’s overall operations “as quickly as possible.”
“We have a deceased staff member, nine DOC employees facing criminal charges, and four deceased inmates,” Schraa said, adding later in the statement: “Lives need to be protected.”
Proulx was injured during a fight Monday night at Lincoln Hills-Copper Lake Schools, the state’s youth prison in Irma in northern Wisconsin. According to a criminal complaint, the 16-year-old inmate had been planning to attack a staff member whom he believed was abusing her power and treating him unfairly.
He had another inmate obtain a cup of soap, threw it at the staff member's face and repeatedly punched her before fleeing into an outdoor courtyard.
Proulx approached the inmate, who began punching him without being provoked, according to the complaint. Video surveillance shows the inmate punch Proulx twice in the face using “full force." Proulx went limp, fell and hit his head on the pavement. The inmate then climbed up a basketball hoop and sat on the hoop overseeing the courtyard, the complaint said.
The first staff member was taken to a hospital, treated and released. Proulx was airlifted to another hospital.
The inmate did not suffer any injuries that required medical treatment, Department of Corrections officials said Tuesday.
Gov. Tony Evers ordered U.S. and Wisconsin flags to fly at half-staff through sunset Thursday to honor Proulx.
"By all accounts, Corey was a dedicated public servant who led with kindness and compassion in his commitment toward helping and supporting the youth he worked with,” the governor said in statement.
Corrections officials said in their statement that Proulx returned to his job as a counselor at Lincoln Hills last spring after briefly leaving the facility two years before.
“A career in corrections, with its dual mission to protect the public and guide individuals toward rehabilitation, can be demanding and requires so many sacrifices for our staff and our families, and Corey made the ultimate sacrifice,” DOC Secretary Jared Hoy said in a statement. “Our DOC family is mourning Corey's loss, and we are keeping all of his family members and friends in our thoughts.”
Lincoln Hills-Copper Lake is Wisconsin’s only youth prison. The facility has been plagued by allegations of staff-on-inmate abuse, including excessive use of pepper spray, restraints and strip searches. A court-appointed monitor is currently overseeing the facility.
The death comes a little more than two weeks after prosecutors charged Waupun Correctional Institution Warden Randall Hepp and eight members of his staff with various felonies, including misconduct and inmate abuse, in connection with two inmates' deaths at the maximum security facility since last year. One of the inmates died of a stroke and the other died of dehydration, according to court documents. Prosecutors allege Hepp and the workers failed to care for them.
Two other inmates have died at Waupun over the last year. One killed himself and the other died of a drug overdose. No one has been charged in those deaths but federal investigators are probing a suspected smuggling ring at the prison.
The state prison system also has been grappling with a chronic shortage of guards. The vacancy rate at Lincoln Hills-Copper Lake stood around 12% during the first two weeks of June, according to the most recent data on the DOC's website.
FILE - This Dec. 10, 2015, aerial file photo, shows Lincoln Hills juvenile prison in Irma, Wis. A staff member at Wisconsin’s youth prison has been declared brain-dead following a fight with an inmate, the county coroner said Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel via AP, File)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Humanitarian workers have started moving tons of aid that piled up at a U.S.-built pier off the Gaza coast to warehouses in the besieged Palestinian territory, the United Nations said Saturday, an important step as Washington considers whether to resume pier operations after yet another pause because of heavy seas.
It wasn't known when the aid might reach Palestinians in Gaza, where experts have warned of the high risk of famine as the Israel-Hamas war is in its ninth month. This is the first time trucks have moved aid from the pier since the World Food Program, a U.N. agency, suspended operations there because of security concerns on June 9.
In just the last week, more than 10 million pounds were moved ashore, according to the U.S. military.
WFP spokesperson Abeer Etefa told The Associated Press this is a one-time operation until the beach is cleared of the aid and is being done to avoid spoilage. Further U.N. operations at the pier depend on security assessments, Etefa said. The U.N. is investigating whether the pier was used in an Israeli military operation last month to rescue three hostages in a raid that killed more than 270 Palestinians.
If WFP trucks successfully bring the aid to warehouses inside Gaza, that could affect the U.S. military’s decision on whether to reinstall the pier, which was removed because of adverse weather on Friday. U.S. officials said they were considering not reinstalling it because of the possibility that the aid would not be picked up.
Lawlessness around humanitarian convoys is another challenge to aid distribution. The convoys have come under attack in Gaza. While most aid deliveries come by land, restrictions around border crossings and on what items can enter Gaza have further hurt a population that was already dependent on humanitarian aid before the war.
Meanwhile Saturday, a senior Biden administration official said the U.S. has presented new language to intermediaries Egypt and Qatar aimed at trying to jump-start stalled Israel-Hamas negotiations.
The official, who requested anonymity to discuss the effort that the White House has yet to publicly unveil, said the revised text focuses on negotiations that are to start between Israel and Hamas during the first phase of a three-phase deal that U.S. President Joe Biden laid out nearly a month ago.
The first phase calls for a “full and complete cease-fire,” a withdrawal of Israeli forces from all densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of a number of hostages, including women, older people and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
The proposal called for the parties to negotiate the terms of the second phase during the 42 days of phase one. Under the current proposal, Hamas could release all of the remaining men, both civilians and soldiers. In return, Israel could free an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees. The releases won’t occur until “sustainable calm” takes effect and all Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza.
The new proposed language, which the official didn't detail, aims to find a workaround of differences between Israel and Hamas about the parameters of the negotiations between phase one and phase two. Hamas wants negotiations centered on the number and identity of Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli jails in exchange for remaining living Israeli soldiers and male hostages held in Gaza, the official said. Israel wants negotiations to be broader and include the demilitarization of the territory controlled by Hamas.
Hamas political official Osama Hamdan said the group had yet to receive a new cease-fire proposal from mediators. Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh spoke by phone with the head of Egypt’s general intelligence service to discuss the negotiations, Hamas said in a statement.
More than 37,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war since it began with Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its toll. The ministry said the bodies of 40 people killed by Israeli strikes had been brought to local hospitals over the past 24 hours.
At least three people, including a 5-year-old girl, were killed and six others were wounded in a strike in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. The Israeli military didn't immediately comment.
The Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and another 250 people were taken hostage.
Israeli forces have been battling Palestinian militants in an eastern part of Gaza City, Shijaiyah, over the last week. Israel's military on Saturday noted “close-quarters combat.” Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled their homes, according to the U.N.
“It’s like the first weeks of the invasion,” one resident, Mahmoud al-Masry said of the intensity of the fighting. “Many people were killed. Many houses were destroyed. They strike anything moving.”
Elsewhere, thousands of Palestinians who remained in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah fled Friday for Muwasi, a coastal tent camp designated by the Israeli army as a safe zone. Some told the AP that they evacuated because Israeli gunfire and missiles had come close to where they sheltered.
More than 1.3 million Palestinians have fled Rafah since Israel’s incursion into the city in early May, while aid groups warn there are no safe places to go.
With the heat in Gaza reaching over 32 C (89 F), many displaced people have found tents unbearable. The territory has been without electricity since Israel cut off power as part of the war, and Israel also stopped pumping drinking water to the enclave.
“Death is better than it. It is a grave,” said Barawi Bakroun, who was displaced from Gaza City, as others fanned themselves with pieces of cardboard.
Wafaa Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Aamer Madhani in Asheville, North Carolina, Samy Magdy in Cairo, and Abby Sewell in Beirut, contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s Israel-Hamas war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
People protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and call for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
People protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and call for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli soldiers move on the top of a tank near the Israeli-Gaza border, as seen from southern Israel, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Israeli soldiers move on the top of a tank near the Israeli-Gaza border, as seen from southern Israel, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Israeli soldiers move on the top of a tank near the Israeli-Gaza border, as seen from southern Israel, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Israeli soldiers move on the top of a tank near the Israeli-Gaza border, as seen from southern Israel, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
An Israeli soldier sits on the top of a tank near the Israeli-Gaza border, as seen from southern Israel, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Smoke rises in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A Palestinian wounded in an Israeli bombardment of Nuseirat refugee camp, is brought to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Israeli armoured vehicles move near the Israeli-Gaza border, as seen from southern Israel, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
People protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and call for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Smoke rises after an explosion in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Medics treat a wounded child from an Israeli bombardment of Nuseirat refugee camp, at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
The sun sets behind the buildings in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
