LAWTON, Okla. – Lawton police have released more details after a prison was put on lockdown due to an assault involving multiple inmates.
According to Matt Elliott with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, several prisons across the state were put on lockdown due to inmates fights over the weekend.
Elliott says on Saturday, inmates at the Northeast Oklahoma Correctional Center in Vinita began fighting.
Then, on Sunday, fights between inmates occurred at the Dick Conner Correctional Center in Hominy, North Fork Correction Center in Sayre, William S. Key Correctional Center in Fort Supply, Lawton Correctional Facility and Mack Alford Correctional Center in Stringtown.
Lawton police say at around 4:30 p.m. Sunday, officers were called to the correctional facility on an assault involving several inmates.
Police say a disturbance took place inside the prison and four inmates were injured and taken to the hospital to be treated. One inmate was stabbed multiple times and flown to a hospital in Oklahoma City.
At the Dick Conner Correctional Center, one inmate died, Elliott says.
More than a dozen inmates total from the affected prisons were transported to hospitals with non-life threatening injuries.
Inmates identified in the fights are being transferred to other facilities for safety reasons, ODOC says. Staff has also been added to the facilities affected to enhance security.
The incidents remain under investigation.
On Monday, the ACLU of Oklahoma called on lawmakers to take action to stop overpopulation at the state’s prisons.
“For years, ODOC leadership has been vocal about the dangerous environment caused by the over-incarceration of Oklahomans and the underfunding of our corrections system. As a result, conditions are not only unsafe for people in state custody, but also those who work for ODOC. Until our legislature takes action to not only stop the growth of people entering the system in Oklahoma but also reduces the number of people currently incarcerated, we needlessly put the safety of everyone in the corrections system at stake,” Nicole McAfee, director of policy and advocacy at ACLU of Oklahoma, said in a statement.