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Mississippi prisons on lockdown after five inmates killed in a week
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/01/03/mississippi-prisons-lockdown-after-five-inmates-killed-week/Five inmates have been killed and several others have been injured at Mississippi prisons since Sunday, mainly in what corrections officials called “major disturbances” partly provoked by gangs.
Prisons across the state are on lockdown as authorities try to identify what sparked the violence at three facilities, including the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. Most recently, Denorris Howell, 36, was pronounced dead early Friday after he got into a fight with his cellmate at Parchman and injured his neck.
The state Department of Corrections vowed to prosecute aggressors to the full extent of the law and said movement at three state prisons, three privately managed prisons and 15 regional prisons is limited to emergencies. Inmates at Parchman also have been transferred to more secure housing units at the facility in an attempt to quell the outburst, officials said.
“Things are kind of surreal at this point,” Sunflower County Medical Examiner Heather Burton told the Clarion-Ledger in Jacksonville, Miss. “Every time the phone rings at this point, it’s another one.”
Prisons across the state are on lockdown as authorities try to identify what sparked the violence at three facilities, including the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. Most recently, Denorris Howell, 36, was pronounced dead early Friday after he got into a fight with his cellmate at Parchman and injured his neck.
The state Department of Corrections vowed to prosecute aggressors to the full extent of the law and said movement at three state prisons, three privately managed prisons and 15 regional prisons is limited to emergencies. Inmates at Parchman also have been transferred to more secure housing units at the facility in an attempt to quell the outburst, officials said.
“Things are kind of surreal at this point,” Sunflower County Medical Examiner Heather Burton told the Clarion-Ledger in Jacksonville, Miss. “Every time the phone rings at this point, it’s another one.”