Last Updated Apr 16, 2018 7:20 AM EDT
COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina prisons officials say seven inmates are dead and 17 others required outside medical attention after hours of fighting inside a maximum security prison.
Prisons spokesman Jeff Taillon announced the grim outcome after State Law Enforcement Division agents helped secure Lee Correctional Institution around 3 a.m. Monday.
Taillon said multiple inmate fights broke out at 7:15 p.m. Sunday.
The department tweeted about them:
Taillon said no officers were wounded.
Lee County Fire/Rescue said ambulances from at least seven jurisdictions lined up outside the prison to tend to the wounded. The local coroner’s office also responded.
Entrance to Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, South Carolina
WLTX-TV
The maximum-security facility in Bishopville houses about 1,500 inmates, some of South Carolina’s most violent and longest-serving offenders. Two officers were stabbed in a 2015 fight. One inmate killed another in February.
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