Inmates at an Oklahoma City prison have taken a guard hostage, beaten him several times and stabbed him before one of the suspects was shot, graphic video shows.
Harrowing footage of the March 27 hostage situation at the Oklahoma County Detention Center shows inmate Curtis Montrell Williams, 34, being shot while holding an improvised knife to detention officer Daniel Misquez’s neck.
Misquez, who was tied up and held for about an hour, is seen in surveillance footage being hit on the head by a second inmate and stabbed in the leg several times.
The guard was also sprayed with his own device, Oklahoma City police chief Wade Gourley told reporters Friday, according to The Oklahoman.
Chaos erupted after prisoners complained about prison conditions and claimed they had no running water and were not being fed, KFOR reported.
‘What really worries me while watching this is [Williams] puts the hostage on his knees in front of me and keeps holding that knife to his throat and that’s what the officers have to deal with when they come in, ”Gourley told reporters of the footage.
The agents who shot Williams in the incident – and that was streamed live on social media – have been identified as Lieutenant Coy Gilbert and Officer Kevin Kuhlman. Both will remain on administrative leave while an investigation continues, Gourley said.
Protesters outside of the police force on Friday demanded that Gourley be fired for the incident, because Williams’ relatives claimed he had been murdered for seeking better conditions in prison.
“I had known Curtis for 34 years and I’m sure he wouldn’t just kidnap anyone,” his mother, Rhonda Lambert, told The Oklahoman last week. “Prison conditions caused my son and so many others like him to lose control.”
Lambert said Gourley had to resign because of his handling of the incident and called on Gilbert and Kuhlman to face criminal charges.
A former inmate who was recently held in prison told the newspaper that inmates there regularly face a lack of security, as well as cockroaches and bed bugs.
“They have three men in two-man cells, people who slept on the floor,” said the former inmate. “Some toilets don’t flush or they don’t have hot water… I told my people there to talk [reporters] in the news.”
Misquez was treated in a hospital after rescue for non-life-threatening injuries, prison officials said. Gourley, meanwhile, refuses calls to resign.
“I haven’t seen anything here that would warrant it,” said Gourley.
With pole wires