Source: AssociatedPress
As many as 2,800 federal prisoners will be moved to other institutions after inmates seized control of part of a prison in South Texas, causing damage that made the facility "uninhabitable," an official said Saturday.
Ed
Ross, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, said the inmates who
had taken control are "now compliant" but that negotiations were ongoing
Saturday in an effort for staff to "regain complete control" of Willacy
County Correctional Center.
"The
situation is not resolved, though we're moving toward a peaceful
resolution," FBI spokesman Erik Vasys said Saturday evening.
It
wasn't immediately clear what progress had been made through the
negotiations, but Sheriff Larry Spence said there were no hostages
involved in the standoff and only minor injuries reported. Spence said
the inmates "have pipes they can use as weapons."
Management
& Training Corp., the private contractor that operates the center
for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, said about 2,000 inmates became
disruptive Friday because they're upset with medical services and
refused to perform work duties.
MTC
spokesman Issa Arnita said in a statement that prisons officials have
begun moving the inmates and that the process would continue into next
week.
Arnita
said prison administrators met with inmates Friday to address their
concerns but that the prisoners "breached" their housing units and
reached the recreation yard. The Valley Morning Star reports fires were
set inside three of the prison's 10 housing units.
Authorities
say about 800 to 900 other inmates are not participating in the
disturbance. The inmates being held at the facility, which is in far
South Texas more than 200 miles south of San Antonio, are described as
"low-level" offenders who are primarily immigrants in the U.S.
illegally.
"Correctional
officers used non-lethal force, tear gas, to attempt to control the
unruly offenders," Arnita said in the statement.
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