Sentencing Thursday Related to Prison Riot | Jackson Free Press | Jackson, MS

Sentencing Thursday Related to Prison Riot

NATCHEZ, Miss. (AP) — An inmate convicted of participating in a deadly prison riot in Mississippi is scheduled for sentencing Thursday.

One guard was killed and 20 people were injured in the May 20, 2012, riot at the privately-run Adams County Correctional Facility.

The prison in Natchez holds people convicted of crimes in the United States while being in the country illegally.

Pedro Gonzalez De Los Reyes pleaded guilty in June in U.S. District Court in Natchez.

Correction officer Catlin Carithers was killed during the riot, which involved hundreds of inmates.

Several other inmates have been charged with participating in the riot.

The prison holds nearly 2,500 inmates, most of them convicted on charges of returning to the U.S. after deportation for being in the country illegally. The prison is owned by Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America, one of the nation's largest private prison companies.

It took hours for authorities to control the riot, which caused an estimated $1.3 million in damage.

The prison's special response team and the Mississippi Highway Patrol's SWAT team worked to end the riot while state and area law enforcement officers, some from neighboring Louisiana, helped secure the outside.

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