Amy
07-22-2004, 09:44 AM
Posted on Thu, Jul. 22, 2004
Uprising at Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler
HOLBROOK MOHR
Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. - At least 28 inmates from Colorado were involved in an uprising at the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility, a day after a similar riot at a private prison run by the same company near Olney Springs, Colo., prison officials said.
There were no injuries in the Mississippi prison riot Wednesday night. Guards had everything under control within an hour, prison officials said.
The facility is run by Nashville-based Corrections Corporations of America, the nation's largest private prison operator.
The Crowley County Correctional Facility in Colorado is also run by CCA. Inmates rioted and set fires at that prison Tuesday, destroying one living unit and extensively damaging four others.
Last month, CCA signed a contract with Colorado to house 128 maximum security inmates at the Tallahatchie County prison in Tutwiler. At least 35 inmates from Colorado are at the facility.
Inmates set ablaze mattresses and their clothing during the riot at the Tutwiler facility.
Louise Chickering, a vice president of CCA, said the prisoners decided to "act up" during a recreation break at about 6:20 p.m.
She said the inmates were housed in a segregation unit with two men per cell. When they were allowed into recreation pens for a break, the inmates broke the chains on the pin gates and gathered in an outdoor recreation yard, Chickering said.
Witnesses reported seeing white smoke rise up from the prison grounds as fire engines and police cars responded to the facility.
"They started with the mattresses, and then they started taking off their shirts and burning those, too," Tutwiler firefighter Terry Tyler told the Clarksdale Press Register. "Finally, they got hold of a port-a-potty and burned that."
"We did use gas as a method of containing them and bringing them back into the fold," Chickering said.
She said local police, sheriff's deputies and corrections officers from the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman arrived as a "show of force," but the security fence around the prison was never in danger of being breached.
Chickering said the inmates were back in their cells within an hour.
The disturbance at the Crowley began Tuesday evening in the recreation yard and grew to include several hundred prisoners, corrections department spokeswoman Alison Morgan said. It was quelled about five hours later.
The full story can be found at http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/9210897.htm
Uprising at Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler
HOLBROOK MOHR
Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. - At least 28 inmates from Colorado were involved in an uprising at the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility, a day after a similar riot at a private prison run by the same company near Olney Springs, Colo., prison officials said.
There were no injuries in the Mississippi prison riot Wednesday night. Guards had everything under control within an hour, prison officials said.
The facility is run by Nashville-based Corrections Corporations of America, the nation's largest private prison operator.
The Crowley County Correctional Facility in Colorado is also run by CCA. Inmates rioted and set fires at that prison Tuesday, destroying one living unit and extensively damaging four others.
Last month, CCA signed a contract with Colorado to house 128 maximum security inmates at the Tallahatchie County prison in Tutwiler. At least 35 inmates from Colorado are at the facility.
Inmates set ablaze mattresses and their clothing during the riot at the Tutwiler facility.
Louise Chickering, a vice president of CCA, said the prisoners decided to "act up" during a recreation break at about 6:20 p.m.
She said the inmates were housed in a segregation unit with two men per cell. When they were allowed into recreation pens for a break, the inmates broke the chains on the pin gates and gathered in an outdoor recreation yard, Chickering said.
Witnesses reported seeing white smoke rise up from the prison grounds as fire engines and police cars responded to the facility.
"They started with the mattresses, and then they started taking off their shirts and burning those, too," Tutwiler firefighter Terry Tyler told the Clarksdale Press Register. "Finally, they got hold of a port-a-potty and burned that."
"We did use gas as a method of containing them and bringing them back into the fold," Chickering said.
She said local police, sheriff's deputies and corrections officers from the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman arrived as a "show of force," but the security fence around the prison was never in danger of being breached.
Chickering said the inmates were back in their cells within an hour.
The disturbance at the Crowley began Tuesday evening in the recreation yard and grew to include several hundred prisoners, corrections department spokeswoman Alison Morgan said. It was quelled about five hours later.
The full story can be found at http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/9210897.htm