Some Tallahatchie County law enforcement and firefighting personnel are among those responding to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman — reportedly the scene of one or more riots by inmates on Thursday.
Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) officials sent out a call for assistance to law enforcement agencies in surrounding counties.
"They called and just asked us to be on standby," Tallahatchie County Sheriff Jimmy Fly told The Sun-Sentinel at 2:49 p.m. Thursday. "Right now, we're just outside the gates just staging up."
Fly said MDOC probation officers were outside the Sunflower County facility "staging up, as well."
The sheriff said many other responding lawmen were on the scene.
"I'm not sure who all is inside [assisting], because there were already some people inside when we got here," Fly noted.
Richard Gipson, public liaison officer for the Tutwiler Fire Department, said he and other Tutwiler firefighters were toned out at 1:30 p.m. to assist with a fire at Unit 30, Building A, reportedly related to a riot.
Tutwiler firefighters were on the scene for about an hour, assisting the Parchman Fire Department by shutting off the sprinkler system and ventilating smoke from the building, Gipson added. They were back in their fire station at 2:48 p.m.
Gipson said he saw inmates standing outside the building, some in handcuffs, as firefighters worked. Law enforcement personnel from Bolivar County, Ruleville and Drew police departments, the Sunflower County Sheriff's Office and the Mississippi Highway Patrol were among those he personally observed there.
Gipson noted that he also heard about a possible disturbance or riot occurring at Unit 29, but had not received verification.
"It's a mess over there!" he exclaimed.
Tallahatchie County Fire Coordinator Linnie Maples said he read a report suggesting that fires had broken out in several inmate units at Parchman.
Someone who answered the telephone at the MDOC Office of Communications in Jackson mid-afternoon Thursday said he did not have anything to report about the incident at Parchman.
Thursday's upheaval was the second reported this week at the state's largest prison.
One Parchman inmate died and several others were injured in a New Year's Eve fight among prisoners at the penitentiary. The inmate killed was identified as Walter Earl Gates, 25, sentenced to 10 years in prison from Coahoma County in 2015.
It was the second fatality at a Mississippi prison this week. During what MDOC called "a major disturbance" Sunday at the South Mississippi Correctional Institution in Leakesville, in Greene County, a 40-year-old inmate was killed and two others were hurt.
The earlier incident prompted a lockdown at all prisons across Mississippi, including state prisons, private prisons (including the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler) and regional facilities.
MDOC spokeswoman Grace Fisher said early this week that the lockdown is for the safety of the public, staff and inmates.
This is a developing story.
