South Carolina inmate: Bodies stacked up during prison riot

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

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

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.

———

Jeffrey Collins contributed to this report.

Share and Enjoy

Syria, Michael Cohen, Facebook: Your Weekend Briefing

____

Photo

2. The week started with an F.B.I. raid on the office and hotel room of President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, above.

And it ended with lawyers for Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen asking a judge to stop investigators from reading some of the documents they had seized. The judge has not yet ruled on the request.

Mr. Trump’s advisers have concluded that the wide-ranging corruption investigation poses a greater — and more imminent — threat to the president than even the special counsel’s investigation.

And Elliott Broidy, a major donor with ties to the White House, resigned as deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee over revelations that he had agreed to pay $1.6 million to a former mistress to stay quiet about their affair. Mr. Cohen arranged the deal.

____

Photo

3. President Trump called James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, above, an “untruthful slime ball” after salacious details from Mr. Comey’s forthcoming memoir leaked out.

In the book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” Mr. Comey denounces the president as “unethical, and untethered to truth,” and said Mr. Trump reminded him of a mob boss. It goes on sale Tuesday. Here’s our review.

Mr. Comey also sat down for a highly anticipated interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, which will air on Sunday at 10 p.m. Eastern.

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story

____

Photo

4. Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, swapped his trademark hoodie for a suit as he faced two days of grilling from lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The hearings were in response to revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that worked with the Trump campaign, had improperly harvested the data of up to 87 million users.

And they showed that momentum is building for tighter regulation of tech companies to safeguard privacy.

Our tech columnist, meanwhile, downloaded his own Facebook data, and found it pretty unsettling.

____

Photo

5. Paul Ryan’s announcement that he would not seek re-election blindsided Republicans and imperiled the party’s grip on the House.

Mr. Ryan, above, the speaker of the House and a star of the party, said he was retiring at 48 — sending an undeniably pessimistic message to Republicans who had expected him to help win midterm elections. A former Virginia official called it a “nightmare scenario.”

Needless to say, it’s difficult to keep up with the pace of news from Washington, and we certainly can’t fit it all in this briefing. For more, see this roundup of the biggest stories in American politics this week.

____

Photo

6. The cover story of this week’s Times Magazine asks a difficult question: Why are black American mothers and babies dying at more than double the rate of their white counterparts?

Research shows the answer has everything to do with the lived experience of being a black woman in America. But there are also some simple solutions that can dramatically improve outcomes, like providing women with doulas who support them through the birth process.

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story

We followed a New Orleans woman, Simone Landrum, above, as she gave birth to a healthy baby boy with the help of a doula. She had been terrified after her previous pregnancy ended in a stillbirth.

We were there as her two older sons visited the hospital to meet the newborn. “Mommy, you did it,” one told her.

____

Photo

7. The Harry Potter economy is filled with jaw-dropping numbers, including 500 million books sold and $7.7 billion in worldwide film grosses.

Here’s another one: “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” a two-part Broadway show now in previews and opening April 22, will cost about $68.5 million to bring to the stage. (That pays for an extensive overhaul of the theater, an unusually large cast and crew and an elaborate set, among other things.)

It’s a huge bet in a flop-prone industry, but also a seemingly safe one — predicated on the expectation that “Cursed Child” will become the biggest nonmusical hit ever on Broadway.

____

Photo

8. The N.B.A. playoffs are now underway, and our sports reporters had some bold predictions about who will prevail.

Among the questions they’re asking: If Stephen Curry, above, and the Golden State Warriors win, does that cement them as a dynasty? If they don’t win, does it invalidate the hyperbole about them that’s been thrown around the last three years? And can they learn to enjoy themselves?

____

Photo

9. “Saturday Night Live” featured surprise appearances by Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller, above, who played the special counsel Robert Mueller and Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer.

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story

The two actors recreated a lie-detector scene from their 2000 comedy “Meet the Parents.”

And a standout sketch asked: Why would anyone ever order lobster at a New York City diner?

____

Photo

10. Finally, looking for more of our signature journalism? Check out this collection of our best weekend reads, which includes portraits of young women once held as captives by Boko Haram, such as the photo above; the gladiators of “Scandal” on their impending exit from the arena; and one man’s quest to solve a decades-old mystery.

And for more suggestions on what to watch and read, may we suggest perusing this rundown of the 11 shows we’ll be talking about in April, on TV and streaming services; and the titles on the New York Times best-seller lists.

Have a great week.

____

Your Weekend Briefing is published Sundays at 6 a.m. Eastern.

You can sign up here to get our Morning Briefings by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning, or to receive an Evening Briefing on U.S. weeknights.

Browse our full range of Times newsletters here.

What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes.com.

Continue reading the main story

Share and Enjoy