State officials on Friday posthumously promoted Floyd from sergeant to lieutenant, effective Feb. 1. A Medal of Valor was presented to his 28-year-old son, Steven Floyd Jr., at a graduation ceremony for a new class of correctional officer cadets.
Smyrna: He may be the first Delaware Correctional officer to be killed in the line of duty, but he was considered a hero to most on this fateful day as authorities say he warned arriving officers, “Trap”, “get out”, potentially saving other officers lives during the takeover.
State officials on Friday posthumously promoted Floyd from sergeant to lieutenant, effective Feb. 1. A Medal of Valor was presented to his 28-year-old son, Steven Floyd Jr., at a graduation ceremony for a new class of correctional officer cadets.
State police issued a statement Friday night saying they had cleared the crime scene and turned Building C, which was held by prison inmates for 18 hours, back to the Department of Correction. They said no details would be released for the time being regarding the investigation or what occurred.
“Because of the circumstances surrounding this tragic incident, this investigation is expected to be lengthy and arduous,” said Sgt. Jeffrey Hale, a spokesman for Delaware State Police, in a statement. “Detectives are continuing to conduct interviews as well as collect and examine countless pieces of physical and video evidence.”
State police and the Department of Correction will be providing updates only “if and when circumstances warrant.”
It was about 5:00 A.M. Thursday when authorities used a back hoe to breach a wall at the C building where two remaining hostages were being held along with an unknown number of inmates at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna. Authorities say inmates used water obtained through negotiations to fill up foot lockers, and used them as barricades in the doorways, preventing authorities from gaining access into the building.
When authorities began clearing the building, they rescued a female counselor who was being shielded by other inmates. It wasn’t until twenty minutes later that they found the remaining hostage, a corrections officer unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at 5:29 A.M. Thursday.
The last incident to happen at the facility was on July 12, 2004, inmate Scott A. Miller abducted and raped a prison counselor. Miller, a convicted serial rapist, was serving a 699-year prison sentence at the Delaware Correctional Center – now Vaughn Correctional Center – when he passed through two security checkpoints armed with a homemade knife before taking Cassandra Arnold hostage for nearly seven hours, sexually assaulting her during the ordeal. The standoff ended when a corrections officer shot Miller to death.
The JTVCC is a Level 5 (prison) facility for men located near Smyrna, Delaware, in southern New Castle County. The James T. Vaughn Correctional Center is the state’s largest adult, male correctional facility. Currently, JTVCC houses approximately 2,500 inmates. JTVCC houses minimum, medium, and maximum security inmates. JTVCC is also the primary facility for housing the Kent County pre-trial (detainee) population.
It also used to house inmates sentenced to the death penalty. Executions were carried out at the JTVCC, until late last year when a federal court ruled that executions were unconstitutional.
