1 dead as US prison standoff ends

A day-long hostage standoff inside Delawares largest state prison for men ended on Thursday after the state police stormed the building, finding one corrections official dead and rescuing another who was being held hostage, the media reported.

The standoff began Wednesday about 10:30 a.m. when inmates at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna, about 40 miles south of Wilmington, took four corrections department workers and some fellow prisoners hostage inside one of the facility's buildings, the Washington Post reported.

The hostage-takers had said their rebellion was a direct response to President Trump's policies, according to the report.

"Everything that he did. All the things that he's doing now," they said during the second of two manifesto-like phone calls to a local newspaper.

 

"We know that the institution is going to change for the worse," they added.

Prisons across the state were locked down because of the standoff there. Dozens of inmates were released in Smyrna as the situation progressed, along with two corrections officials who were being held, the Department of Correction said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear how many of the inmates held in the seized prison block were hostages as opposed to hostage-takers.

The Delaware State Police entered the building shortly after 5 a.m. Thursday, according to the corrections department.

A Department of Correction employee who was being held was "safely rescued and was being examined at a local hospital", where she is alert and talking, the agency said in a statement.

The police found the other hostage, a corrections officer who was not immediately identified, unresponsive when they entered, and he was pronounced dead at 5:29 a.m.

Delware Governor John Carney said he was praying for the fallen officer's family and said the hostage situation serves as a reminder of the risks law enforcement officers face.

Carney said officials were now focusing on trying to learn "what happened and how this happened\", and vowed to "make whatever changes are necessary to ensure nothing like it ever happens again".

--IANS

soni/vt