Oklahoma prison riot ends 8 hours later
TULSA — Hundreds of inmates, some armed with baseball bats and iron pipes, rioted at an Oklahoma federal prison for about eight hours, taking two guards hostage and refusing to return to their cells before they were finally corralled by law enforcement officers, authorities said Monday.
The riot started late Sunday at the Great Plains Correctional Facility in Hinton after a fight broke out in the prison yard and rapidly escalated from there, Caddo County Sheriff Lennis Miller said. Miller said the inmates refused to return to their cells and at one point occupied a building in the complex, which is about 55 miles west of Oklahoma City.
Miller said about 150 inmates were involved, but The GEO Group Inc., the Florida-based operator of the private prison, estimated Monday that about 400 inmates caused the disturbance in two recreation yards. Miller said prisoners, some toting bats and pipes, took two guards hostage at the outset of the riot but that both were freed and uninjured.
Miller said authorities used pepper spray and stun grenades to corral inmates into a soccer field and an exercise yard.
Acquitted Minnesota officer off force
MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota police officer who was acquitted in last year’s fatal shooting of black motorist Philando Castile will receive $48,500 as he leaves the suburban department that employed him at the time of the killing, according to a separation agreement announced Monday.
Jeronimo Yanez will be paid the money in a lump sum, minus deductions and withholdings for taxes. Under the five-page agreement released through a public records request, the Minneapolis suburb of St. Anthony also will pay Yanez for up to 600 hours of accrued and unused personal leave. The agreement, which has Monday’s date, doesn’t say how much time he has accrued.
Castile, a 32-year-old school cafeteria worker, was shot by Yanez during a traffic stop on July 6, 2016, after Castile told the officer that he was armed. Castile had a permit for his gun. The shooting gained widespread attention after Castile’s girlfriend live-streamed its aftermath on Facebook.
Yanez, who is Hispanic, was acquitted of manslaughter and other charges in June. On the day of the verdict, the city announced that the “public will be best served” if Yanez were no longer an officer.
Yanez’s acquittal led to days of protests, including one in St. Paul that shut down Interstate 94 for hours and ended with 18 arrests.
Marine plane hits Delta; 16 bodies found
ITTA BENA, Miss. — A military transport plane crashed Monday in Mississippi’s Delta region, and officials said they had found 16 bodies from the plane.
Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks said a KC-130 military refueling tanker crashed about 85 miles north of Jackson and that officials were searching for others across a large debris field in the dark Monday, more than five hours after the tanker spiraled to the ground into a soybean field.
Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Sarah Burns said in a statement that a Marine KC-130 “experienced a mishap” Monday evening but provided no further details.
Greenwood Fire Chief Marcus Banks, no relation to the sheriff, said the crash was reported about 4 p.m. and debris from the plane was scattered over a radius of about 5 miles. An intense fire fed by jet fuel hampered firefighters, Banks said, causing them to turn to unmanned devices in an attempt to control the flames.
“We were driven away by several high-intensity explosions,” he said.
Indian admits terror aid, targeting judge
TOLEDO, Ohio — An Indian citizen who studied at Ohio State University has pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism and trying to arrange the killing of a federal judge who had been overseeing his case.
Yahya Farooq Mohammad is one of four men with Ohio ties accused in 2015 of working to send money to a known al-Qaida leader. The others are awaiting trial.
Prosecutors said Mohammad told another inmate in Toledo last year that he wanted to have the federal judge killed.
Mohammad’s attorney said the government didn’t have a strong case but the 39-year-old Mohammad decided to plead guilty and accept a 27-year sentence because it was too risky to face trial and a possible life sentence.
A Section on 07/11/2017