3 Lansing Correctional Facility officers hospitalized after scuffle

LANSING, Kan. (WDAF) — For the second weekend in a row, an inmate has died at the Lansing Correctional Facility.

No details in either of those cases have been released by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, now in charge of figuring out what happened.

It could be weeks before more information is released. For example, when an inmate died at the facility in November 2023, and an investigation was required, it took more than two weeks for the Kansas Department of Corrections to confirm that it was a homicide.

On the same day, staff reported to the Kansas Department of Corrections that there had been a scuffle where four corrections officers had been injured, with three of them receiving treatment from a local hospital, who are now released and OK.

Later in the day, the Kansas Department of Corrections reported the death of Eric Avila, a 51-year-old inmate. Life-saving measures were taken but were unsuccessful, according to a press release.

“The scuffle earlier in the day and Mr. Avila’s death are not related. Under Kansas law, any resident death from unknown causes is referred to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation for review and public notification is made,” according to a statement emailed to FOX4.

The notification is extremely similar to seven days before when the Department of Corrections announced the death of 28-year-old inmate Kaydin Varland-Hazelton on Saturday, Feb. 17.

There is no preliminary cause of death for Varland-Hazleton. KBI says an autopsy did not determine a pending cause of death and that investigators are waiting for a toxicology report to return. The process could take six to eight weeks.

An autopsy for Avila is scheduled for Tuesday.

Leavenworth County District Attorney Todd Thompson advises patience in this situation.

“I’m probably curious like anybody else, but I know that the information is going to come to me just like it’s going to come to the public. I just have to be patient and wait for it,” Thompson said.

“And there’s no reason for hiding anything. And we just hope to be able to figure out what’s going on. And it’s just horrible to make an assumption about something when you don’t have the full picture,” Thompson said.

The last time the public was given notification of an inmate’s death was after Saturday, Nov. 25, when the Department of Corrections announced the death of 29-year-old inmate Darionce Terrell Charles-Lott.

KBI would later confirm that the death was a homicide by strangulation. It was information that took more than two weeks to be released to the public.