Inmate dies after fight at Utah State Prison


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UTAH STATE PRISON — Unified police are investigating whether a fight between inmates at the Utah State Prison caused the death of one of those involved.

Christopher Lee Lucas, 25, and another inmate, whose name was not released, got into a fight in a commons area of the Uinta III facility Saturday, said Unified Police Lt. Justin Hoyal. The fight ended up in one of the prison cells. A motive for the fight was still being investigated Sunday.

Corrections officers used pepper spray to break up the fight. As officers were escorting Lucas out of the cell, he collapsed, Hoyal said. He was taken to a local hospital where he was declared dead at 6:46 p.m.

The state medical examiner was scheduled to conduct an autopsy to determine if Lucas died as a result of injuries sustained in the fight, if the pepper spray contributed to his death or if he died from an unrelated medical condition.

Four Utah Department of Corrections officers involved were placed on standard administrative leave.

Lucas was serving a 1-to-15 year sentence for pleading guilty but mentally ill to forcible sexual abuse. He had been at the prison since June 19, 2009, and was scheduled to appear before the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole on Jan. 1, 2015.

Since being incarcerated, state court records show Lucas was convicted in both 2010 and 2011 of damaging a prison cell. In the 2011 incident, he was convicted after he and another inmate broke a sprinkler head off of a fire suppression system and flooded a section of the Olympus facility.

In 2012, Lucas was convicted of assaulting another inmate after punching a man about 20 times, breaking his eye socket, according to court records.

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Pat Reavy

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