A series of apparently gang-related stabbings that began Thursday night at Delta Correctional Facility has prompted a lockdown at the medium security prison, Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks said.
"I was notified that there was a problem with the gangs fighting in the prison. They called me on Friday night and told me they were on lockdown," Banks said.
Mississippi Department of Corrections personnel were on hand Thursday in an effort to help restore order to the prison, he said.
The privately-run prison, which is operated by the Nashville-based Corrections Corp. of America, houses medium security inmates and adjoins the Leflore County Jail.
Banks said the prison requested on Friday night that they be allowed the use of vacant county jail beds in an effort to separate gang members from one another.
The sheriff said while the stabbings required some wounded inmates to go to Greenwood Leflore Hospital for treatment, those inmates were later returned to the facility, he said.
Attempts to contact officials with Delta Correctional by phone Saturday were not successful. Banks said the stabbings were likely connected to the fatal stabbing of an inmate at Mississippi State Penitentiary's Unit 32 at Parchman on Wednesday.
Boris Harper was stabbed to death by a fellow inmate, Lamarcus Lee Hillard, the Associated Press reported Friday.
Harper, originally from Coahoma County, was serving a life sentence for capital murder and two 20-year sentences for aggravated assault.
Hillard is serving a 25-year sentence for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. He is originally from Hinds County.
Unit 32, the prison's maximum security unit, houses about 1,000 prisoners, the AP reported.
The Harper case remains under investigation, according to a state Department of Corrections official.
Banks said the stabbings at Delta Correctional weren't the only ones that happened in the state's network of the regional prisons.
"I think they had problems in Marshall County at the Marshall County Correctional Facility," he said.
The Marshall County Correctional Facility, located in Holly Springs, is another privately-run facility that houses state inmates. It is operated by Wackenhut Corrections Corp. of Boca Raton, Fla.
Banks said the spate of gang-related stabbings throughout the correctional system are likely part of a broader trend.
"This is gang week," he said jokingly.
