Four corrections employees were still being held hostage Wednesday hours after a standoff unfolded at a Delaware prison, according to the Delaware State Police.
A fifth employee, who was also taken hostage, was released around 2:40 p.m., about four hours after the hostage standoff began at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna, Delaware, said Sgt. Richard Bratz, a state police spokesman.
“We’re doing everything we can to ensure the safety of everyone involved,” Bratz told reporters.
Bratz said the incident began around 10:32 a.m. when a corrections officer radioed for immediate assistance in a building that houses 100 inmates. Corrections officers responded and the facility was placed under lockdown, Bratz said.
That’s when the five employees were taken hostage, he said.
He said the employee who was released suffered non-life threatening injuries.
It is unknown if there are any other injuries, said Bratz, but FBI and Delaware state police are continuing negotiations.
“It’s a very scary situation right now,” Geoff Klopp, president of the Correctional Officers Association of Delaware, said earlier during the standoff.
The Kent County Fire Department responded to the prison around 11:30 a.m. after an alarm was sounded, CNN-affliate KYW reported.
The correctional facility is about 90 miles east of Washington.
Built in 1971, it houses about 2,500 minimum-, medium-, and maximum-security inmates, including death row inmates, according to the state bureau of prisons.