Weekend clash at Oklahoma prison leaves 4 dead, 4 injured
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Four inmates died of injuries sustained during an attack or fight over the weekend at an Oklahoma prison, officials said, and investigators are trying to determine what sparked the violence.
The incident that also left four inmates injured happened around 4 p.m. Saturday at the Cimarron Correctional Facility in Cushing, a community between the state's two largest cities, Oklahoma City and Tulsa. The prison houses medium- and maximum-security male inmates.
Terri Watkins, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections, said preliminary reports indicate at least three of the four men who died were stabbed. Three other inmates wounded in the melee remained hospitalized Monday in stable condition, but Watkins declined to disclose the nature of their injuries.
The stabbings apparently happened in quick succession while the inmates at a medium-security wing of the prison were being let out of their cells into the exercise yard, Watkins said.
"The entire stabbing incident happened over a couple of minutes," Watkins said, adding that prisoners were all locked in their cells within 40 minutes of the outbreak of violence.
The Department of Corrections identified the victims Monday as: 31-year-old Anthony Fulwilder, 26-year-old Michael Mayden, 23-year-old Kyle Tiffee and 29-year-old Christopher Tignor. All four of the inmates had convictions out of Oklahoma County, where the state's capital city, Oklahoma City, is located.
It is the second major violent outburst in months at the prison, which is owned and operated by Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America. The company operates three private facilities in Oklahoma housing nearly 6,000 prisoners and dozens nationwide housing tens of thousands of inmates.
In June, some 200 to 300 of the prison's roughly 1,600 inmates were involved in a brawl there. Eleven prisoners were taken to hospitals after the fight and the facility was placed on lockdown. The fighting occurred among inmates in three separate housing units.
Watkins said that as a precaution, all Oklahoma prisons have been placed on lockdown, which means that inmates are confined to their cells and their movement inside the facility is severely restricted.
She said two separate investigations are underway -- one by the Department of Corrections' inspector general's office and the other by CCA.
Oklahoma has the highest rate of prison homicides in the nation, with state inmates killed at a rate more than three times the national average, according to figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.