Joe Allen Gamble served in the U.S. Air Force for 1 year and 11 months.
Sergeant Joe Gamble was killed after being stabbed by an inmate at the Oklahoma State Reformatory, a low maximum-security prison, in Granite.
As officers began locking down the prison for a head count, the suspect began to attack another officer in a common area of the prison, stabbing him 16 times in the back of the head and back. When Sergeant Gamble went to assist the other officer, the inmate stabbed him in the throat with one of two homemade knives he had. The suspect was taken under control after a brief standoff with the prison's emergency response team.
Both officers were transported to a local hospital where Sergeant Gamble died the next morning.
The suspect, 24, who was serving a 10-year sentence for drug possession and tax fraud, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole on October 26, 2001.
Sergeant Gamble was a United States Air Force veteran and had served with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections for three years.
The medium-security prison in Holdenville was renamed the Allen Gamble Correctional Center.
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In tribute
I served 1985 to 1993. You served too, before the badge - different uniform, same idea. You go where you are sent and you do not get to pick the call.
Sergeant Gamble gave the Oklahoma Department of Corrections 3 years.
Thank you for your service to the people of Oklahoma. Thank you for your service before it. Gone but never to be forgotten.
Rest easy, brother.
— S. Vincent Anthony, U.S. Army 1985-1993
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