Warden and guard stabbed in riot at Alabama prison
A southern Alabama prison was locked down late on Friday night after a violent riot broke out at the facility.
A prison spokesman says two prison officials were stabbed, but their injuries were not life-threatening. Images and videos shared from inside the building show fires burning and inmates moving freely around the prison's dormitories.
Alabama Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Horton said the warden and a corrections officer were stabbed after prisoners tried to take control of one of the dormitories at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in southern Alabama, just outside of Atmore.
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Footage from inside the prison shows inmates lighting fires.
Another person believed to be a prisoner in the facility posted a message to his Facebook page appealing to the public.
"We need y'all help here at Holman Correction Facility Prison. The police down here beating on and jus[t] treating us any kind way....Help please," read the post.
A Facebook post believed to be from another inmate, Lester Hails, shows images of fires burning at the facility.
Zannice Houston, who is the mother of an inmate at the prison, told AL.com that her son, Jamario J.E. Houston, called her from inside the prison.
He said that prisoners had built a wall, and they are waiting for more authorities to come to the prison.
"Yes, right now it's not under control, Lord Jesus," Houston said. She said she hasn't heard from her son since then.
As of Saturday morning, the facility was still on lockdown, according to local news reports.
The facility houses death row inmates and is the only facility in the state that carries out executions.
The most recent monthly statistics available from the state show 830 prisoners housed at Holman in December. The prison's population included 161 men on death row.
Additional information from the Associated Press.
Megan Specia was Mashable's Assistant Real-Time News Editor and joined the team in September 2014. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism & Mass Communications from the University of New Hampshire after growing up in the Jersey 'burbs. She made her way to New York via a four year stopover in Dublin. Megan previously worked as a journalist and editor at Storyful in both Dublin and New York. Before all of that, though, her claim to fame was as head cake arranger and purveyor of all things sweet at Queen of Tarts cafe in Dublin, where she developed a serious addiction to macarons.
