COLUMBIA, S.C. – Twenty-nine inmates have been charged in connection with a South Carolina prison riot that left seven inmates dead and 22 injured in 2018, the state’s attorney general announced Thursday.
The nearly eight hours of killings and chaos at the prison in April 2018 constituted the nation’s deadliest prison riot in nearly 25 years.
All 1,200 inmates were put on lockdown for weeks after the unrest at the high-security prison, which houses violent offenders and inmates with demonstrated behavioral issues.
The use of illegal cellphones to communicate led to the “mob riot,” Wilson said.
An inmate was killed two weeks ago at the prison and an officer was stabbed there earlier this year.