TERRE HAUTE — Federal prison guards opened fire on an inmate while breaking up a fight at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute on Thursday. A second inmate also was hospitalized with unspecified injuries.
“Two inmates were transported to the local hospital for treatment of their injuries with one inmate sustaining a gunshot wound,” prison spokeswoman Hattie Sims said in a brief statement distributed to news outlets.
Sims said she had no further information on the condition of the injured inmates or the nature of their injuries.
“That is all we have right now,” Sims told The Associated Press. “We are secure here. The public is not at risk.”
The prison about 70 miles west of Indianapolis was placed on lockdown, “and the institution remains secure,” Sims said.
The fight broke out about 8 a.m. in the recreation yard, and when the inmates failed to stop, “shots were fired by institution staff to prevent the possible loss of life,” Sims said.
No guards were injured, she said.
The FBI was notified. Agent Wendy Osborne referred all comment to the Bureau of Prisons.
The Terre Haute prison is the only place in the nation housing federal death row inmates and the only place where they are executed. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was put to death at the prison in 2001 for the 1995 bombing that killed 168 people.
Among the inmates currently held at the prison is American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh, who is serving a 20-year sentence for aiding Afghanistan's now-defunct Taliban government.
Lindh, of Fairfax, Calif., was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 by U.S. forces sent to topple the Taliban after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
