Guard dies following stabbing

GRANITE, Okla. (AP) -- A corrections officer died Tuesday morning about 24 hours after being stabbed by an inmate at the Oklahoma State Reformatory. <br><br>Joe Gamble died shortly after 9 a.m., Department

Tuesday, June 6th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

GRANITE, Okla. (AP) -- A corrections officer died Tuesday morning about 24 hours after being stabbed by an inmate at the Oklahoma State Reformatory.

Joe Gamble died shortly after 9 a.m., Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie said.

Gamble, 29, had been stabbed in the throat Monday morning while helping another guard who had been stabbed several times.

The other officer, William Callaway, 35, was transferred to a Lawton hospital after initial treatment in Mangum. Massie said Callaway was in stable condition.

Gamble had been with the prison since October 1997.

Callaway was located at the entrance to inmate housing Unit D, when a prisoner, identified as Dorhee McKissick, stabbed him and then Gamble, officials said.

McKissick, 24, then remained in the prison's day room, where inmates gather and talk and watch television, prison spokeswoman Teri Posvic said.

It took about four hours before the prison's emergency response team could capture McKissick and recover two makeshift knives.

"The inmate still had both weapons wrapped around his wrist," Posvic said. "They tried talking to him to get him to come out on his own, and he wouldn't."

The emergency response team entered the unit about 12:25 p.m. and removed McKissick a few minutes later, Posvic said.

The inmate apparently "got tired ... and threw down the weapons, and that's when they were able to go in and get him," she said.

McKissick, serving a 10-year sentence for throwing bodily fluids at an Oklahoma County officer, was moved to the maximum-security Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

The Oklahoma State Reformatory houses about 850 minimum- to low-maximum security prisoners. The stabbing occurred in the medium-security area of the prison where more than half the inmates are housed.