FORT MADISON, Iowa—White supremacists were responsible for two assaults on Iowa correctional officers in less than
a week, AFSCME Council 61 President Danny Homan said Oct. 18. Homan made the statement after an Iowa State Penitentiary guard was stabbed five times with a homemade 10-inch knife by inmate Keith Piper. He said he’d been told that a state database showed both Piper and the inmate who attacked another guard four days earlier were “confirmed Peckerwoods,” which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as an auxiliary for aspiring members of the Aryan Brotherhood white-supremacist gang. “Inmate informants have been notifying staff for months that incidents like this were being planned, yet ISP administration refused to act on the warnings,” Homan added. “We are demanding that the Department of Corrections meet with us to discuss this health and safety crisis before someone gets killed.” The department declined to comment to the Cedar Rapids Gazette. The stabbed officer was taken 85 miles by ambulance to a hospital in Iowa City, where he was reported in stable condition.
