Riot Breaks Out In Alabama Prison

A riot at a prison in southern Alabama has correction officers working to regain control of the facility.

The thousand-bed Holman Correctional Facility, about 50 miles north of Mobile, is the only prison in Alabama that carries out executions.

Alabama Public Radio's Pat Duggins tells our Newscast unit that prisoners are setting fires and roaming the facility, and that the local sheriff's department says "it isn't sure what sparked the riot at the prison near the city of Atmore."

Video footage allegedly from inside the prison shows inmates with their faces covered by towels and a number of fires burning.

A spokesman for the Alabama Department of Corrections says the prison warden and a corrections officer were stabbed, but their injuries are not life-threatening.

"Alabama has 24,000 inmates in a state system designed to hold 13,000," Duggins says. "State lawmakers are opposing a plan by Gov. Robert Bentley to spend $800 million on more prison space."