Inmates killed with homemade knives and 17 others injured during seven hours of fighting in a maximum-security prison in Bishopville

Seven inmates in a maximum-security prison in South Carolina were brutally killed with homemade knives on Monday morning as wardens struggled for seven hours to bring mass fighting under control.

With a further 17 inmates requiring medical treatment for the injuries in outside hospitals, the unrest at Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopsville was the worst outbreak of fatal violence in the state in recent times. The killings bring the number of inmates murdered by fellow prisoners in South Carolina to 20 since January 2017, and marks an alarming increase in bloody incidents within the correctional system over the past five years.

Most of the victims appeared to have died as a result of stabbings or slashings with homemade knives, known as “shanks”. The weapons are ubiquitous within South Carolina’s 21 prisons.

“Put simply, anyone who can has a knife,” wrote Steve Bailey, a columnist for the local Post and Courier newspaper who investigated the condition inside state lock-ups earlier this year.

His research discovered a frighteningly steady rise in violent deaths among inmates in the state in recent years. Last year there were 18 – 12 murders and six suicides; in 2016 there were five murders and six suicides; back in 2009 the total of deaths was just two.

There has been a similarly steep rise in the past couple of years in serious assaults, with 250 inmates requiring hospital treatment in 2016 and 2017 alone.

Yet at the same time as violence has been increasing, the overall prison population has been steadily falling as part of a nationwide trend towards redirecting non-violent offenders to non-custodial sentences.

The fighting at Lee Correctional Institution, which houses about 1,600 inmates including some of the most dangerous in the state, erupted at about 7.15pm on Sunday night and quickly spread to three housing units. Control was not restored until shortly before 3am on Monday morning.

The deaths occurred as a result of inmates fighting each other in numerous altercations, the prison service indicated. Precisely what may have sparked the unrest was unknown.

The uptick in violence in South Carolina’s prisons has a number of causes, experts say, including gang activity, increasing prevalence of smuggled cell phones that exacerbates illegal trade and rivalries and other factors. But the overwhelming problem is staff shortages and the consequent dire morale among officers.

More than 600 staff positions are currently standing vacant in South Carolina – almost a third of the total correctional workforce.

A reason for that, in turn, is low pay, with the Post and Courier pointing out that a prison guard has an annual starter salary of about $27,000 – about $4,000 less than a garbage truck driver would bring home.

As a result of the shortages, there are simply too few guards to keep an eye on volatile prisoners. According to the state’s prison chief, Bryan Stirling, the ratio of officers to inmates is more than 200 – vastly above the standard of 30 recommended nationally.

The crisis of staff shortages is replicated across the country. Research by Pew Charitable Trusts has found many states – including Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Michigan, Missouri and West Virginia – grappling with the associated problems of shortages and high staff turnover.

Shane Bauer, a reporter for Mother Jones, witnessed the results of inadequate staffing when he spent four months working undercover as a prison guard in a privately-run lock-up in Louisiana. He found lax security standards because too few people were willing to take on such a dangerous job for such paltry pay.

“Without sufficient staff the prison environment became more violent,” said Bauer, whose book American Prison is publishing soon. “Standard safety procedures, such as routine checks on inmates, happened less frequently, and there were fewer resources for rehabilitative programs which meant that inmates had less to do and there was an increase in general frustration.”

Many prison systems are trapped in a vicious cycle. Fewer staff leads to inmates being locked up in their cells for longer hours, and that in turn exacerbates nascent mental health problems that are already so rampant that advocates have dubbed US prisons the “new asylums”.

At times the pressure cooker explodes. Last April in a separate South Carolina prison, Kirkland Correctional Institution, four inmates were strangled to death within a 30-minute period in a dorm that housed prisoners with mental illness.

According to the local newspaper the State, the victims were deemed a “nuisance” to the two other prisoners who murdered them.



</s>Seven inmates were killed and 17 others injured in a riot at a maximum security prison in South Carolina, one of the deadliest in decades in the United States, authorities said Monday.

Fights among inmates erupted Sunday evening at the Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, South Carolina and was brought under control at 2:55 am on Monday.

"The incident at Lee CI resulted in 17 inmates requiring outside medical attention and seven inmates were killed," the department said on its Twitter account.

All prison guards and law enforcement authorities who responded were "safe and accounted for," it said.

The department had initially described the riot as an "ongoing incident," only revealing the scope of the problem hours after its start at 7:15 pm Sunday.

"The incident involved multiple inmate on inmate altercations in three housing units," the department said.

Lee Correctional Institution, which is reported to have capacity to hold nearly 1,800 inmates, is a maximum security facility built in 1993 to house violent offenders and inmates who exhibit behavioral problems.

Deadly prison riots have been relatively rare in the United States, despite some notable exceptions.

In 1993, nine inmates and a corrections officer were killed in the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Lucasville, Ohio.

A two-day riot and hostage-taking at the New Mexico State Prison in 1980 left 33 inmates dead and 200 injured, one of the worst in modern US history.

Probably the most famous was the 1971 rebellion at New York's Attica prison.

After a four day standoff with inmates holding 42 hostages, New York state police moved in to retake the prison on orders of governor Nelson Rockefeller. By the time it was over 43 people were dead, including 10 guards and prison employees and 33 inmates.</s>Gov. Henry McMaster will hold a 1:30 p.m. news conference after seven inmates were killed and another 17 were treated following multiple "inmate on inmate altercations" Sunday night at Lee Correctional Institution.

Gov. Henry McMaster will hold a 1:30 p.m. news conference after seven inmates were killed and another 17 were treated following multiple "inmate on inmate altercations" Sunday night at Lee Correctional Institution.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Inmates armed with homemade knives fought each other for more than seven hours inside a maximum-security prison, leaving seven of them dead in the worst U.S. prison riot in a quarter-century, officials said. An inmate who witnessed the violence told The Associated Press that bodies were "literally stacked on top of each other."

At least 17 prisoners were seriously injured as inmates fought uninterrupted before authorities regained control of Lee Correctional Institution about 3 a.m. Monday, South Carolina prisons spokesman Jeff Taillon said.

Officials didn't immediately say what sparked the violence at the prison that houses some of the state's worst and longest-serving offenders. No prison guards were hurt.

The prisoner who saw the riot exchanged messages with AP on the condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to have a cellphone and fears retribution from other inmates.

He also didn't say what started the riot but said most of the inmates are affiliated with gangs and he saw several attackers taunt a rival gang member who was badly injured.

"I just saw three dead on the sidewalk outside of my unit. One guy is still alive and breathing, but just barely," the inmate said.

The riot was the latest violence in the South Carolina prisons system, where at least 13 other inmates have been killed by fellow prisoners since the start of 2017 and was the most inmates slain in a single riot in the U.S. since nine prisoners and a guard died in 1993 at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, said Steve Martin, a consultant who helps the federal government monitor prison systems.

The inmate who spoke to AP said that many cell door locks were already broken before the riot and that he and other prisoners roamed around freely. Hours after the violence started, no correctional officers or medical personnel attended to the dead or dying, he said.

"It's been over two hours, but no COs (corrections officers) have responded to this unit, and no medical personnel have attempted to render any kind of aid," he wrote. "The COs never even attempted to render aid, nor quell the disturbance. They just sat in the control bubble, called the issue in, then sat on their collective asses."

South Carolina prison guards are not armed, so as long as employees aren't threatened, they typically seal off wings when there is an inmate uprising and wait for a special team of state police to arrive to try to stop the rioting.

The inmate told AP that he knew at least two of the slain men well. He said he saw an inmate trying to get up before he "started into that 'death rattle' people often hear about, but never experience firsthand."

Most of the slain inmates were stabbed with homemade knives or slashed, while the remainder appeared to have been beaten, Lee County Coroner Larry Logan said. The slain were serving anywhere from 10 years to life in prison and their crimes ranged from murder to burglary to trafficking crack cocaine. They youngest was 28 years old while the oldest was 44.

The injured inmates required medical attention outside the prison, which is located 40 miles east of Columbia.

The South Carolina Department of Corrections tweeted that the deaths happened in multiple inmate-on-inmate fights in three housing units. It began at around 7:15 p.m. Sunday.

The coroner said when he arrived it was a chaotic scene of fighting everywhere. Logan said the state-run Lee Correctional Institution, like most other South Carolina prisons, is struggling to find enough workers, but he doesn't believe anything could be done once things got that far out of control.

"If everybody has an uprising, you are always going to be understaffed," Logan said.

The maximum-security facility in Bishopville houses about 1,500 inmates. Two officers were stabbed there in 2015. More recently, an inmate held a guard hostage for 90 minutes in March and another killed a fellow prisoner in February.

The deaths at Lee are the most in any South Carolina prison in recent years. Four inmates were killed last year by a pair of prisoners at Kirkland Correctional Institution.

The riot was the latest violence in a system where 12 inmates were killed by other prisoners last year and 250 prisoners were assaulted so severely in 2016 and 2017 they had to be treated in outside hospitals, according to public records obtained by The Post and Courier of Charleston.

The 250 inmates taken to the hospital after assaults the past two years were nearly double the rate from the two years before, the newspaper reported.

McMaster spokesman Brian Symmes said the governor has "complete confidence" in Stirling's ability to lead the state Department of Corrections.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>COLUMBIA, S.C. - A South Carolina prisons spokesman says seven inmates are dead and 17 others required outside medical attention after hours of fighting inside a maximum security prison.

Prisons spokesman Jeff Taillon announced the grim outcome after State Law Enforcement Division agents helped secure Lee Correctional Institution around 3 a.m. Monday.

Taillon said no officers were wounded after multiple inmate fights broke out at 7:15 p.m. Sunday.

Lee County Fire/Rescue said ambulances from at least seven jurisdictions lined up outside the prison to tend to the wounded. The local coroner's office also responded.

The maximum-security facility in Bishopville houses about 1,500 inmates, some of South Carolina's most violent and longest-serving offenders. Two officers were stabbed in a 2015 fight. One inmate killed another in February.

Copyright 2018 by WKMG ClickOrlando. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina prisons spokesman said seven inmates are dead and 17 others required outside medical attention after hours of fighting inside a maximum security prison.

Prisons spokesman Jeff Taillon announced the outcome after State Law Enforcement Division agents helped secure Lee Correctional Institution about 3 a.m. Monday.

Taillon said multiple inmate fights that broke out at 7:15 p.m. Sunday. Taillon said no officers were wounded.

The maximum-security facility in Bishopville houses about 1,500 inmates, some of South Carolina’s most violent and longest-serving offenders.

Two officers were stabbed in a 2015 fight. One inmate killed another in February.</s>COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Seven inmates were killed and at least 17 others seriously injured as inmates were left to fight for more than seven hours before authorities regained control of a maximum-security prison.

South Carolina prisons spokesman Jeff Taillon announced the grim outcome after State Law Enforcement Division agents helped secure Lee Correctional Institution around 3 a.m. Monday.

It's the latest violence in a system where 12 inmates were killed by other prisoners last year and 250 prisoners were assaulted so severely in 2016 and 2017 they had to be treated in outside hospitals, according to public records obtained by a Charleston newspaper columnist.

At the Bishopville prison where the seven were killed, one inmate held a guard hostage for 90 minutes in March and another killed a fellow prisoner in February.

Taillon said no officers were wounded after multiple inmate fights broke out at 7:15 p.m. Sunday. He said 17 inmates required medical attention outside the prison.

Most of the slain inmates were stabbed or slashed, while the remainder appeared to have been beaten, Lee County Coroner Larry Logan told The Associated Press on Monday.

"How else are you going to die in prison? They don't have guns," Logan said by phone as he went to a Florence hospital to finish identifying the dead.

Autopsies should confirm their causes of death, and their names won't be released until their families are notified, Logan said.

The South Carolina Department of Corrections tweeted that the deaths happened as in multiple inmate-on-inmate altercations in three housing units.

Lee County Fire/Rescue said ambulances from multiple jurisdictions lined up outside to tend to the wounded. The local coroner's office also responded.

The coroner said when he arrived it was a chaotic scene of fighting everywhere. Logan said Lee Correctional Institution, like most other South Carolina prisons, is struggling to find enough workers, but he doesn't believe anything could be done once things got that far out of control.

"If everybody has an uprising, you are always going to be understaffed," Logan said.

The maximum-security facility in Bishopville houses about 1,500 inmates, some of South Carolina's most violent and longest-serving offenders. Two officers were stabbed there in a 2015 fight.

These deaths at Lee are the most in any South Carolina prison in recent years. Four inmates were killed by a pair of prisoners in the state's Kirkland Correctional Institution last year.

Twelve inmates were killed by other prisoners in South Carolina in 2017, according to public documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Steve Bailey, who writes columns for The Post and Courier of Charleston.

The 250 inmates taken to the hospital after assaults the past two years were nearly double the rate from the two years before, the newspaper reported.

Seven dead after fights at max security prison in South Carolina</s>SEVEN INMATES HAVE been killed and 17 others injured in a riot at a maximum security prison in South Carolina, one of the deadliest in decades in the United States, authorities have said.

Fights among inmates erupted yesterday evening at the Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, South Carolina and were brought under control at 2.55am (7.55am Irish time) this morning.

“The incident at Lee CI resulted in 17 inmates requiring outside medical attention and seven inmates were killed,” the department said on its Twitter account.

All prison guards and law enforcement authorities who responded were “safe and accounted for,” it said.

The department had initially described the riot as an “ongoing incident,” only revealing the scope of the problem hours after its start at 7.15pm (12.15am Irish time) yesterday.

“The incident involved multiple inmate on inmate altercations in three housing units,” the department said.

Lee Correctional Institution, which is reported to have the capacity to hold nearly 1,800 inmates, is a maximum security facility built in 1993 to house violent offenders and inmates who exhibit behavioural problems.

Deadly prison riots have been relatively rare in the United States, despite some notable exceptions.

In 1993, nine inmates and a corrections officer were killed in the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Lucasville, Ohio.

A two-day riot and hostage-taking at the New Mexico State Prison in 1980 left 33 inmates dead and 200 injured, one of the worst in modern US history.

Probably the most famous was the 1971 rebellion at New York’s Attica prison.

After a four day standoff with inmates holding 42 hostages, New York state police moved in to retake the prison on orders of governor Nelson Rockefeller. By the time it was over 43 people were dead, including 10 guards and prison employees and 33 inmates.</s>Seven inmates were killed and 17 others injured after fights broke out late Sunday inside a notorious maximum-security prison in South Carolina, officials said Monday.

State Law Enforcement Division agents helped secure the Lee Correctional Institution about 3 a.m. Monday after the fights began at 7:15 p.m. Sunday, prisons spokesman Jeff Taillon said.

No officers were hurt in the violence at three housing units, he said.

The maximum-security lockup in Bishopville — 55 miles east of Columbia — houses about 1,500 inmates, some of South Carolina’s most violent and longest-serving offenders.

In late March, prisoners briefly held an officer hostage after they took control of part of a dorm, The State reported.

After the incident was brought under control, the officer was evaluated by medical personnel and released. No inmates were injured.

In February, one inmate killed another at the prison. In October 2017, an inmate was stabbed to death, and another was killed in a fight last June.

In 2015, two officers were stabbed in a fight.</s>At least seven inmates may have been beaten, stabbed and slashed to death in a nonstop riot at a South Carolina maximum security prison, authorities said.

Fights lasted eight hours at the Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, a state prison for men, authorities said.

Another 17 inmates were injured and needed outside medical help after the skirmishes started to break out around 7:15 p.m. Sunday, the Department of Corrections said.

Lee County Coroner Larry Logan said some of the seven killed inmates died of slashing or stab wounds, but others were possibly beaten to death.

He told the Associated Press autopsy results would confirm if that was the case. All victims have been identified, but their names haven’t been released yet.

Logan described the prison as pure chaos when he arrived, with fights everywhere he looked at the facility, which houses about 1,600 inmates.

No law enforcement officials were injured during the violent scuffles, authorities said.

The men’s prison has a troubled history going back several years.

Several inmates took an officer hostage in one part of the prison last month, and got control of one side of a dormitory.

In February, one inmate killed another prisoner. Two officers stationed there were also stabbed in 2015.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster’s spokesman said after the riot that the governor has “complete confidence” in Bryan Stirling, who’s served as the state’s prison system head since 2013.</s>Inmates armed with homemade knives fought each other for about seven hours over territory and money, leaving seven dead in the worst US prison riot in quarter of a century, officials said.

Inmates armed with homemade knives fought each other for about seven hours over territory and money, leaving seven dead in the worst US prison riot in quarter of a century, officials said.

Seven inmates killed as turf war turns into riot in US prison

At least 17 prisoners were seriously injured at Lee Correctional Institution, South Carolina prisons chief Bryan Stirling said. The inmates who were killed during an incident at Lee Correctional Institution have been identified as RAYMOND ANGELO SCOTT, MICHAEL MILLEDGE, DAMONTE MARQUEZ RIVERA, EDDIE CASEY JAY GASKINS, JOSHUA SVWIN JENKINS, COREY SCOTT, CORNELIUS QUANTRAL MCCLARY. — SC Dept. Corrections (@SCDCNews) April 16, 2018 The first fight started in a dorm at about 7.15pm on Sunday and appeared to be contained before suddenly starting in two other dorms.

Mobile phones helped stir up the trouble, and state officials urged the federal government to change a law and allow them to block the signals from prisoners’ phones. “These folks are fighting over real money and real territory while they’re incarcerated,” Mr Stirling said at a news conference.

No prison guards were hurt. Mr Stirling said they followed protocol by backing out and asking for support. It took several hours to restore order, but once a special Swat team entered, the inmates gave up peacefully, he said.

The prisoner who saw the riot exchanged messages with AP on the condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to have a phone and fears retribution from other inmates. He said he saw several attackers taunt a rival gang member who was badly injured.

It was the most inmates killed in a single riot in the US since nine prisoners and a guard died in 1993 at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, said Steve Martin, a consultant who helps the federal government monitor prison systems. South Carolina governor Henry McMaster, left, and Department of Corrections director Bryan Stirling address the media (Sean Rayford/AP) The inmate who spoke to AP said many cell door locks were already broken before the riot and he and other prisoners roamed around freely at the prison in Bishopville, 40 miles east of Columbia.

Hours after the violence started, no correctional officers or medical personnel had attended to the dead or dying, he said. “The COs (corrections officers) never even attempted to render aid, nor quell the disturbance,” he said. “They just sat in the control bubble, called the issue in, then sat on their collective asses.”

Mr Stirling said the response teams entered as fast as they could. “We gathered as many people as we could, as quickly as we could and went in as soon as we thought it was safe for our staff,” he said. The inmate told AP he knew at least two of the dead men well. He said he saw an inmate trying to get up before he “started into that ‘death rattle’ people often hear about, but never experience first hand”.

Most of the killed inmates were stabbed with homemade knives or slashed, while the remainder appeared to have been beaten, Lee County coroner Larry Logan said. Mr Stirling said an investigation would determine if any other type of weapon was used. The dead men were serving between 10 years and life and their crimes ranged from murder to burglary to trafficking crack cocaine. They youngest was 28 while the oldest was 44.

The injured inmates required medical attention outside the prison, which made it more difficult for authorities to restore order, Mr Stirling said. The coroner said when he arrived it was a chaotic scene of fighting everywhere. Mr Logan said the state-run Lee Correctional Institution, like most other South Carolina prisons, is struggling to find enough workers, but he does not believe anything could have been done once things got that far out of control.

“If everybody has an uprising, you are always going to be understaffed,” Mr Logan said. The maximum-security facility in Bishopville houses about 1,500 inmates and there were 44 guards there when the first fight started. Two officers were stabbed there in 2015. More recently, an inmate held a guard hostage for 90 minutes in March and another killed a fellow prisoner in February.
South Carolina authorities announce that a riot yesterday at the Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, Lee County, killed seven inmates and wounded seventeen others.