Drone Drops Drugs At Ohio Jail: Contraband From Quadcopter Sparks Fight At Correctional Facility
Reportedly drone drops of drugs at jails around the country are common. The latest quadcopter delivery of contraband at a prison yard in Ohio sparked a fight as inmates jockeyed for the narcotics, among other things.
According to a news report from US News and World Report, officials at Mansfield Correctional Institution were taken by surprise when a brawl broke out with prisoners last week. After a probe of the incident, investigators with the Department of Corrections learned that the commotion was over banned items dropped by a drone: tobacco, marijuana and drugs containing heroin.
Apparently, the fight began when an innate picked up the outlawed items that didn’t belong to him. Guards quickly intervened as other prisoners from the south and north yards began gathering. Inmates were all corralled inside a gymnasium for crowd control.
DRONE DROPS DRUGS IN PRISON YARD, SPURRING INMATE FIGHT… http://t.co/oOgIivsNgh
— DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) August 4, 2015
There, they were strip-searched and ushered through a full-body scanner. Thanks to the quick work of officers, no one was injured during the incident. Pepper spray was used to contain the nearly 200 prisoners. Of those involved in the skirmish on the prison grounds, nine were placed in solitary confinement as a precaution.
Later, prison officials viewed the footage and learned there was a drone overhead just before the fight took place. The brawl was started over one innate retrieving the dropped drugs from the remote-controlled device. Altogether, investigators confiscated 65.4 grams of marijuana, 6.6 grams of heroin and 144 grams of tobacco.
According to the Columbus Dispatch, if the heroin dropped in the recreation yard is only half pure, it is enough to yield 140 doses of he drug.
As bizarre as this sounds, Smith said using drones to drop drugs and other prohibited at jails and correctional facilities is common around the country. However, investigators say it’s only happened a handful of times in the state of Ohio.
“Our agency’s top security administrators are taking a broad approach to increase awareness and detection of unmanned aerial systems.”
At this time the Ohio Highway Patrol is taking the lead to investigate who was the intended recipient of the drugs dropped by the drone. Additionally, they are trying to trace the equipment back to the source.
It was only a matter of time before the bad guys picked up on a novel idea. The idea of delivering items via drones was hatched by the world’s largest online retailer, as Inquisitr wrote in a earlier report.
“Your Amazon orders of the near future could be landing at your doorstep from the skies. This isn’t science fiction, but a very real possibility made more possible after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an experimental airworthiness certificate to an Amazon Logistics, Inc. unmanned aircraft (UAS) design.”
In the past, people have hidden drugs and other embargoed items in tennis balls and thrown them over jail fences. With the use of drones, drug smuggling has gone high-tech, right?
[Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images]
