3 inmates killed, 5 injured in prison disturbance in Oklahoma

Three inmates were killed and five others were injured in a disturbance at a private prison in the U.S. state of Oklahoma on Saturday.

According to a daily newspaper at the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, the disturbance happened at around 4:39 pm local time (2239 GMT) and lasted about 40 minutes at Cimarron Correctional Facility in Cushing, a city some 80 kilometers southwest of Tulsa in northeast Oklahoma.

Steve Owen, spokesman for Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America which owns and operates the facility, confirmed the incident, saying that the disturbance was contained to a single housing pod and the prison was placed on lockdown.

Owen said the injured inmates were sent to hospital for treatment and no staff member of the prison was injured without disclosing the reason of the disturbance.

The Cimarron Correctional Facilit houses about 1,600 medium- and maximum-security male inmates.

Similar incidents have taken place in the prison over the past years with the latest one in June this year in which 11 inmates were hospitalized after a fight among them from three housing units of the prison.

Source: XINHUA