Inmates praised for saving guard being attacked by another prisoner, SC officials say

Two inmates at a South Carolina prison are being praised for stopping a guard from being attacked Tuesday night, according to the state Department of Corrections.

The inmates, who have not been publicly identified, intervened when another prisoner was assaulting an officer at Lee Correctional Institution, the South Carolina Department of Corrections said on Twitter. That’s the same prison where seven inmates were killed during a violent incident in 2018.

During the Tuesday night incident, the guard was punched in the face, pushed down a flight of stairs and stomped on the head, according to the tweets.

The two inmates then stepped in. One grabbed the prisoner who initiated the attack while the other pulled the guard to safety and called for help, the S.C. Department of Corrections said.

The officer was taken to an area hospital and later released after suffering non-life-threatening injuries, according to the Department of Corrections. The guard will require extensive ongoing care, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Chrysti Shain told The State.

The attacking inmate was moved to another prison and charges from the attack are pending. Specific information on the charges was not available because they had not been filed, but Shain said these are criminal charges, not internal Department of Corrections disciplinary charges.

A motive for the attack has not been determined, according to Shain.

But the Department of Corrections shared its gratitude for the intervening inmates.

“Thank you to these (two) inmates who helped stop this serious assault,” the tweet said.

Lee Correctional is a men’s-only, split-custody prison that currently houses 1,084 inmates, according to the Department of Corrections. Like other Level 3 prisons in South Carolina, Lee is “designed primarily to house violent offenders with longer sentences, and inmates who exhibit behavioral problems,” the Department of Corrections said.

Because it’s a split-custody facility, it houses both medium-custody and maximum-custody inmates, and all maximum-security inmates bunk alone in single cells, Shain said. Of the inmates currently incarcerated at Lee Correctional, 290 are in maximum custody, 754 are in medium custody, 20 are in minimum custody, and the remaining 20 have not yet been classified, according to Shain.

The prison is in Bishopville, about 50 miles east of Columbia.

In addition to the seven inmates who were killed in the 2018 incident, 17 others were injured during those fights, The State reported.

Lee Correctional has had other violent incidents over the years. The State previously reported there have been several large insurrections, including one in which an inmate overpowered a guard and used his keys to free other prisoners from their cells.

Another incident when a prisoner assaulted a staff member happened in February 2020, when an inmate attacked and tried to sexually assault an employee at Lee Correctional, according to the Department of Corrections.

There have also been other deaths reported at the prison.

In January 2021, an inmate at Lee Correctional died after a fight with other prisoners.

In another incident at Lee Correctional in November 2020, one inmate was killed after being attacked by other prisoners.

Despite the violent incidents, Shain said Lee Correctional is “far different than it was in 2018.”

In a comparison of recent incidents compared the amount reported 4 years ago, the number of attacks has diminished. In 2018, there were 16 serious inmate on inmate assaults at Lee Correctional, while only two have been reported at the prison this year, according to Shain.

Violence across all Department of Corrections facilities has dropped, Shain said. Monday’s attack was the 28th instance this year where an inmate seriously assaulted a staff member at a South Carolina prison. There were 43 of those attacks reported in 2018, according to Shain.

Additionally, in 2018 there were nine homicides reported in Department of Corrections prisons, compared to three homicides in 2022, according to Shain.