Arizona
Prisoners use locks as weapons in video that appears to show fight in Arizona prison
Video appears to capture fight inside Arizona prison
In a cell phone video that appears to have been filmed inside an Arizona prison, one man tries to get away from two others. It’s not clear when or where the video was shot.
A video capturing a fight in what appears to be an Arizona prison was posted on social media, showing a man bloodied and being followed by two others with makeshift flails — metal locks hanging from the ends of tethers.
Representatives of Arizona’s prison system declined to immediately comment on the 3-minute video.
The combatants were dressed in orange pants and shirts with “ADC” stamped on them.
It’s not clear when or where the video was shot. It follows a fight between one man and two others that moves from inside a building, through a doorway and outside into a prison yard. No correctional officers or prison personnel are visible at any point in the footage that appears to be shot on a cell phone.
Cell phones are considered contraband in Arizona prisons and are prohibited. How the person filming the video obtained the device was unclear.
Arizona’s prison system is run by the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry. Reached by email on May 16, department officials said they would respond to The Arizona Republic’s inquiries about the video, including whether they could confirm it had been filmed in an Arizona prison, next week.
On April 4, three men were killed inside the Cimarron Unit at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Tucson. The Department of Corrections identified Ricky Wassenaar, a violent repeat offender serving 16 life sentences for a 2004 attempted prison escape that turned into a hostage crisis, as the sole suspect in the triple homicide. Saul Alvarez, 51, Thorne Harnage, 42, and Donald Lashley, 75, were the men killed.
The incident prompted strong criticism from state lawmakers, including House Judiciary Chair Quang Nguyen, R-Prescott Valley, who demanded accountability from the department and questioned why Wassenaar was placed in a lower-security unit despite repeated warnings and past disciplinary violations.
3-minute video shows conflict move through multiple prison areas
The video begins with two men on the ground, legs interlocked, wrestling away from each other.
One man, with long black hair, stands up holding an orange tether. At the end of it swings a metal combination lock — he holds it like a weapon.
Another man, with short black hair, still on the ground, pushes himself backward. His face and clothes are bloodied.
In the background, voices can be heard.
“Joseph, give me the password.”
“Get the (expletive) out of here.”
“You want the password?”
“Let him go. Let him go, man.”
The bloodied man stumbles to his feet and backs out of the frame. The man with the makeshift flail follows, and another man, also in orange, holding a tethered lock, joins behind him.
The room comes into view: white cinderblock walls, waist-high dividers, rows of bunk beds and two long, rectangular windows letting in sunlight.
The second man with a flail steps forward and feigns a move. The man with short hair picks up a chair, trying to shield himself.
Heavy breathing fills the audio. Someone off-camera says, “Go on, get out of here.”
The camera dips behind a wall and then shows the scene again. One man holds his lock by his shoulder, ready to strike. The other crouches behind the chair, blood on his face and shoulder.
“You want me to leave or not? Move,” says the bloodied man.
“Leave right now,” one of the men replies, pointing.
Then to the other: “Bro, just get the (expletive) over here, on this side. Hurry up.”
“There — go,” the man with long hair says, motioning at the man with the chair.
“Alright. Password?” the man with the chair asks, holding his hand up.
“I don’t give a (expletive),” comes the response.
The bloodied man walks away through an open doorway, and the long-haired man with the flail follows.
“Leave. Leave, (expletive),” the man with long hair yells, walking out the door.
The camera follows them outside.
A cement walkway cuts between blue buildings on one side and a tall metal fence on the other.
The two men face off again. The bloodied man, still carrying the chair, suddenly throws it and runs.
The man with the flail catches him. Grabs him. The second man with a weapon rushes in, swinging his lock. It hits.
The bloodied man falls, a trail of dust lifting as he rolls away.
He gets back up near the metal fence, barbed wire above him, then takes off along the edge.
“(Expletive) the rat,” someone says off camera.
The bloodied man walks off into the distance. The two men stalk after him.
In the background, a loud banging sound — like wheels hitting seams in the concrete — echoes as the camera trails far behind and the video ends.
Video reflects known dangers in Arizona prisons, advocate says
Maria Morris, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project, reviewed the video and said it reflected troubling patterns reported by incarcerated people in Arizona, including assaults involving improvised weapons such as locks in socks.
Morris, whose work focuses on solitary confinement, said many people are placed into general population units despite warning staff that they do not feel safe.
Prisoners often feel unsafe after they opt out of prison gang affiliation by signing what’s known as an “Integrated Housing Program agreement,” which indicates a willingness to be housed with people of any race, Morris said. In Arizona prisons, that decision can mark someone as a target.
Often, prison staff tell them they must go into the general housing unit anyway, she said.
“They are told that they need to stay on the unit until they are threatened or assaulted,” she said.
Afterward, they’re typically moved into solitary confinement — sometimes for months — before the cycle repeats, Morris said.
The University of Arizona and Tucson are known for yearlong warm weather, but when is it too much? With temperature reaching record highs in March, the city of Tucson has already reported increased temperatures for this year.
In the wake of the third annual Southern Arizona Heat Summit, integrating voices throughout the City of Tucson, community stakeholders and experts from UA gather to speak about possible solutions and policies to address rising temperatures and extreme heat.
The summit strives to ensure that the lived experiences of Southern Arizona residents are voiced. The first summit commenced in 2024, in response to the declaration of an extreme heat emergency in Arizona by Gov. Katie Hobbs, as part of a larger plan called Arizona’s Extreme Heat Response Plan.
With representation from organizations such as the American Red Cross, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, Arizona Jobs with Justice, Tucson Indian Center and many more, the summit emphasized the importance of the perspective and concerns of stakeholder groups throughout the community.
The summit included a variety of UA experts, including faculty representing the School of Geography, Development and Environment; the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy; the Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture.
One particular project, led by Ladd Keith at the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning, is a part of the Southwest Urban Corridor Integrated Field Laboratory, which is funded by the United States’ Department of Energy to explore extreme heat throughout Arizona. SW-IFL works in collaboration with other national laboratories including those at ASU and NAU.
The team works to analyze extreme heat in the southwest and rural areas, and how communities deal with heat by conducting interviews. The team has also prescribed policy to Pima County and the City of Tucson regarding more effective strategies to combat rising temperatures, such as green stormwater infrastructure.
Anne-Lise Boyer, a post-doctoral researcher with the Climate Assessment for the Southwest, shared that the team particularly analyzed extreme heat in three parts: heat mitigation, heat management and heat governance.
Mitigation deals with prevention through strategies such as green infrastructure and planting trees, while management includes cooling sensors and heat warning systems. Governance allows these measures to be enacted through policy.
In Tucson, some of the most meaningful work the team has engaged in has been drafting the City of Tucson’s Heat Action Roadmap in 2024, which outlines goals to mitigate and mandate extreme heat and its impacts while prioritizing community voices.
The goals of the roadmap include informing and educating citizens of Tucson on the adverse effects of extreme heat and cooling people’s homes and neighborhoods by incorporating heat risk in regional planning. These steps are essential to practicing heat management, especially as the city of Tucson grows.
“I think the most interesting thing about being based in Tucson is that because the heat has been here for a long time, it’s like a laboratory in itself,” Boyer said. “We have all this research and all this collaboration happening with local actors because it’s a pressing issue in Arizona.”
As the annual heat summit recurs, new ideas and perspectives continue to be shared throughout the community. Boyer shared that this year, the Southern Arizona Heat Summit focused on the youth perspective, highlighting middle school and high school students and how heat impacts their everyday lives. Many students spoke about how heat shaped their lives at home, school and sports.
“That’s one of the goals, to have community members participate and give their input in how they wish the city will deal with the heat,” Boyer said.
Boyer and Kirsten Lake, a program coordinator for the SW-IFL team, also shared how the impacts of extreme heat impact some neighborhoods and communities in Tucson more than others, and that their research often evaluates these factors to determine where heat management efforts would make the greatest impact.
“Its important when you’re putting into effect some of these measures, that you make sure you put it where it’s going to make the biggest difference,” Lake said.
The work of the SW-IFL team is not just locally known. The Brookhaven National Lab based in New York deployed a specialized truck to Tucson to collect information on the atmosphere and rising temperatures. The SW-IFL team hosted the Brookhaven team.
Additionally, Keith’s work has led to a guidebook called “Planning for Urban Heat Resilience” which focuses on the adverse effects extreme heat poses to marginalized communities across the country.
“It is so different from place to place and neighborhood to neighborhood because you have to take the whole context into account,” Boyer said. “They recommend first to document the heat impacts in your communities.”
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PAGE, AZ (AZFamily) — A person accused of making terroristic threats toward a northern Arizona medical facility was arrested Friday morning.
Just after 10:30 p.m., police received a report of a person calling the facility and threatening to kill staff and Native Americans, according to the Page Police Department.
Authorities said staff placed the facility on lockdown until officers identified the suspect and arrested them outside their home.
The suspect was booked on charges of disorderly conduct, threatening and intimidating, and making terroristic threats. Police have not publicly identified the person.
“The Page Police Department is grateful for and supports the medical staff’s decision to put the medical facility into lockdown until the suspect was arrested and the situation was rendered safe,” the department said in a Facebook post.
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In these four-round projections, the Arizona Cardinals don’t get a tackle until the fourth round.
We are just days away from the 2026 NFL draft, and that means some final mock drafts. What direction will the draft take the Arizona Cardinals?
Draft Wire’s Curt Popejoy put together a four-round mock draft for the Cardinals. They go defense early but rebuild the offense for 2026 and moving forward, including landing their potential franchise quarterback.
Cardinals 4-round mock draft
Here are the players in the first four rounds Popejoy projects for Arizona.
- Round 1: Ohio State EDGE/LB Arvell Reese
- Round 2: Alabama QB Ty Simpson
- Round 3: Clemson WR Antonio Williams
- Round 4: Florida OT Austin Barber
What we think of the picks
The Cardinals want to trade out of the third pick and draft a tackle, so not getting a tackle until Round 4 seems unlikely, although they did meet with Barber. They do have options at right tackle for 2026 already on the roster.
Reese would be a great pick if they don’t trade back, as they badly need pass-rushing help off the edge.
Drafting Simpson seems inevitable at this point, so it has to be in a mock draft, although the feeling is they will need to go up into Round 1 again to get him.
Williams has speed and is almost six feet tall, but he does have short arms.
Get more Cardinals and NFL coverage from Cards Wire’s Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify, YouTube or Apple podcasts.
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