A group of inmates took guards hostage at a maximum-security prison in Smyrna, Delaware, Wednesday in a brazen attack that forced corrections officials to lock down all of Delaware’s state prisons.
“The inmates have taken over a building,” Rep. William Carson, a member of the Delaware House Corrections Committee, told the Wilmington News Journal.
“We’re hearing that three to five correctional officers have been taken hostage and the inmates have control of the building,” Geoff Klopp, the President of the Correctional Officers Association of Delaware, told the Delaware State News.
“Department of Correction Response Teams and the Delaware State Police are on scene responding to a hostage situation at James T. Vaughan Correction Center,” read a statement issued by the department.
The facility is the state’s largest male correctional center and houses approximately 2,500 inmates, according to its website.