Details on the Riot at Mississippi's Wilkinson County Correctional Facility on Sat. April 20th

by Cyrus Webb

On the afternoon of Sat. April 20th I received a correspondence from an individual who told me he wished to remain anonymous but did tell me that he was the cousin of an inmate incarcerated at the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility in Woodville, MS. He told me the reason for his reaching out was because his cousin was injured during a riot that took place this morning at the facility, and he wanted the truth to be known.

This source did not reveal the name of his cousin that was at the facility but related this account of what took place: "Around 9a.m. this morning (Sat. April 20, 2013) I received a call from my cousin stating that he had been assaulted by known gang members at the facility. He told me that he had received injuries to his chest, arm, ear and leg.

"What resulted in the riot was an investigation that was going on at the facility concerning known gang members. Because of the investigation the inmates had been told that that warden wasn't going to have any day room call on Saturday. Even though the inmates had been told there would be no day room call, the doors on the unit were were opened anyway this (Saturday) morning, and not 10 min. later the altercation between the rival gangs occurred."

According to the anonymous source there were five inmates airlifted to a local hospital and over a dozen ambulances were used to rush others to the hospital. The source says he was told two inmates were killed during the riot with many more injured, including his cousin which provided the information. (It was later discovered that only one inmate had died on the scene with another having life-threatening injuries.) It was relayed to me that normal procedure for the facility is to have 2 officers running each unit: a tower officer and a floor officer. It was reported that at the time of the incident this unit didn't have a floor officer on the ground.

 The following pictures were sent to me from the source, reportedly of some of the injuries sustained by some of the other inmates injured during the riot:

I asked the source why he was providing this information for me to share with the public. He told me that his aim was to allow the public to know what was going on at the prison, in hopes of needed changes being made.

"They were understaffed and don't have the manpower to run the facility," he told me. "Because of this the lives of the inmates and the officers is in jeopardy. Something has to be done."