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Three inmates died and a dozen others were taken to hospital with injuries after a “possible riot” on Sunday at a state prison in Georgia, authorities said.
The Washington county sheriff, Joel Cochran, said several “major fights” broke out early Sunday afternoon at a state prison in Davisboro, the Georgia television news outlet WMAZ reported, resulting in 13 inmates being transported for treatment.
One of them died in hospital, Cochran said, with two others deceased in the facility, a medium security prison with a capacity of 1,548 inmates. In October, Cochran said criminal gangs were operating drugs enterprises from within Washington and other state prison facilities – and had used drones to smuggle in drugs and cellphones.
“What we understand occurred early this afternoon is that several major fights broke out within the facility between inmates which has resulted in approximately 13 inmates being transported out of the facility for medical treatment,” Cochran told WMAZ on Sunday.
Cochran said “it’s not uncommon for these things to happen at correctional facilities; however, I think it has been quite some time since we’ve had to come to an incident this large”.
The sheriff added that the fighting was among inmates, but he believed one prison guard might have been hurt. The Georgia department of corrections did not respond to a request for comment.
Cochran said his deputies were joined by Georgia state troopers, the Davisboro police department and Johnson county sheriff’s office at the scene. Coroner’s office staff were also present, he said.
The Human and Civil Rights Coalition of Georgia identified one of the deceased inmates on its Facebook page as Jimmy Stillwell Trammell. Trammell was scheduled for release in the upcoming week after completing a 10-year sentence.
Separately, the coalition posted video footage of what appeared to be multiple inmates running from the building. It said the incident was “complete chaos and violence”.
Prison riots with fatalities are relatively rare in the US, although there have been several recent deaths after violent altercations. In June, one inmate was killed in a fight at US penitentiary in Beaumont, Texas, the same facility where two inmates died in 2022 in gang violence that led to a temporary lockdown at all federal facilities.
The deadliest most recent incident was in 2018 at the Lee correctional institution, South Carolina, when seven inmates died and 17 were hurt in a mass fight involving knives.
A five-day riot at the Attica correctional facility in Buffalo, New York, in 1975 remains the nation’s bloodiest, with 43 inmates, officers and civilians dead.
