Prisoners armed with homemade knives rioted for more than seven hours inside a maximum-security facility, leaving seven inmates dead, and bodies were “literally stacked on top of each other,” an inmate told The Associated Press on Monday.
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, which houses some of the state’s worst and longest-serving offenders. No prison guards were hurt.
Sean Rayford/AP This shows the Lee Correctional Institution, April 16, 2018, in Bishopville, S.C. Multiple inmates were killed and others seriously injured amid fighting between prisoners inside the maximum security prison in South Carolina.
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 at the prison 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 20 inmates have been killed by fellow prisoners since the start of 2017. At Lee Correctional, an inmate held a guard hostage for 90 minutes in March and another killed a fellow prisoner in February.
Sean Rayford/AP This shows the Lee Correctional Institution, April 16, 2018, in Bishopville, S.C. Multiple inmates were killed and others seriously injured amid fighting between prisoners inside the maximum security prison in South Carolina.
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.”
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 told AP.
“How else are you going to die in prison? They don’t have guns,” Logan said by phone as he went to a hospital to finish identifying the dead.
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.
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.
Gov. Henry McMaster, meanwhile, expressed support for state prisons chief Bryan Stirling.
McMaster spokesman Brian Symmes said the governor has “complete confidence” in Stirling’s ability to lead the state Department of Corrections.
Federal officials say nearly 207 million eggs have been recalled because of fears that they may have been contaminated with salmonella, a type of bacteria that causes serious illnesses and deaths, particularly among children and elderly people.
Rose Acre Farms is recalling the products after federal officials tied illnesses to the company’s facility in North Carolina, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said. Twenty-two people on the East Coast have been sickened by Salmonella braenderup. No one has died.
An investigation by the federal agency led to an inspection of the farm, which is located in Hyde County, N.C., and produces 2.3 million eggs a day from 3 million hens. Eggs produced at the farm are distributed to retail stores and restaurants in Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the Carolinas.
The recalled eggs were sold under brand names such as Great Value, Country Daybreak, Glenview and Food Lion (Click here for a full list). They were also sold to Waffle House restaurants.
Rose Acre Farms is a family-owned company headquartered in Seymour, Ind., and has 17 facilities in eight states. The Washington Post was unable to reach the company Sunday.
The recall is the largest since 2010, when a major salmonella outbreak tied to Iowa egg farms sickened more than 1,500 people, said Bill Marler a Seattle-based personal injury attorney who focuses on food-borne illness litigation.
More than 500 eggs from two Iowa farms owned and controlled by Austin J. DeCoster were recalled that year. DeCoster and his son, Peter DeCoster, each pleaded guilty to one count of introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce. Authorities said the DeCosters’ company, Quality Egg, sold eggs contaminated with Salmonella enteriditis to several states and bribed an inspector for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in an attempt to sell eggs that were “red tagged” for failing to meet minimum industry standards.
The father and son were sentenced to three months in jail and fined $7 million.
Marler said this most recent outbreak involving Salmonella braenderup, unlike the one in 2010, was detected far more quickly, preventing dozens more from being sick. That’s partly because the type of salmonella bacteria is less common, so investigators were able to isolate it quicker, he said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, salmonella causes about 1.2 million illnesses, 23,000 hospitalizations and 450 deaths every year in the United States.
The Rose Acre Farms recall is the latest in a series of salmonella-related incidents in recent months.
Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration ordered a mandatory recall of all food products that contained powdered kratom after investigators found that several products manufactured by Las Vegas-based Triangle Pharmanaturals contained salmonella. The outbreak spread to nearly 40 states and sickened 132 people.
Kratom or Mitragyna speciosa, an unregulated herbal supplement used to treat pain, anxiety, depression and symptoms of opioid withdrawal, has also been linked to three dozen non-salmonella-related deaths.
Last month, the CDC investigated another salmonella outbreak that involved raw coconut and sickened 13 people in eight states. International Harvest Inc., based in Mount Vernon, N.Y., recalled bags and bulk packages of Organic Go Smile! Raw Coconut because of potential salmonella contamination.
In February, Triple T Specialty Meats, based in Ackley, Iowa, recalled more than 20,000 pounds of ready-to-eat chicken salad products that may have been contaminated with salmonella. The outbreak resulted in 265 illnesses in eight states. One person died, according to the CDC.
Salmonella can come from contaminated animal products such as beef, poultry, milk and eggs, as well as fruits and vegetables. It can cause fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain among healthy people, but can lead to fatal infections among children younger than 5, adults older than 65 and those with weak immune systems.
