NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Authorities today quelled a 14-hour riot by 450 convicts enraged over new striped uniforms and bad conditions at one prison, but rampaging inmates at two more Tennessee prisons set fires and took 12 guards hostage.
The uprisings began Tuesday night at the Turney Center prison in Only, Tenn., and spread today to the Tennessee State Prison in Nashville and to the Morgan County Regional Correctional Facility, about 110 miles northwest of Knoxville.
At the Tennessee State Prison in Nashville, SWAT teams brandishing clubs and rifles rushed through the gates about 10:15 a.m. after fires broke out and gunshots were heard behind the prison walls.
But once inside the SWAT teams stopped short of the cell block area. But they remained in the prison, while the warden attempted to negotiate with the prisoners on release of the hostages.
John Parish, a spokesman for Gov. Lamar Alexander, said officials believed all 12 hostages were prison guards. The warden's office said prisoners set fires in the commissary and laundry area.
'They broke down the door to the commissary,' prison commisary employee Paul Grandberry said. 'They were banging on the door saying, 'Open up,' So we went out the back door to the hospital.'
He said about 40 commissary and hospital employees barridaded themselves in the hospital but were later evacuated by prison officials.
Information on the riot at the Morgan County facility was meager.
'We do have a riot in progress -- there are no injuries,' Morgan spokeswoman Sandra Coley told a reporter about 1:20 p.m. Then she hung up. There was no other word immediate word on the situation there.
The first uprising, at the Turney Center prison in Only, began Monday night when about 30 inmates refused to wear new uniforms issued to all state prisoners. The out-of-uniform inmates were turned away from the mess hall.
Armed with knives, about 450 of 782 prisoners at the medium-security Turney Center were involved in the Monday takeover, burning buildings, ripping up cellblocks and briefly taking one guard hostage.
But the inmates -- who earlier warned lives would be lost if authorities tried to storm the prison -- put up little resistance when heavily armed units of the Tennessee Correction Department and state Highway Patrol began the assault.
Warden Larry Lack, using a bullhorn, ordered inmates to return to their cells and at 7:42 a.m. ordered the tactical units into the compound. The officers carried billy clubs, shotguns and tear-gas cannisters and wore gas masks and flack jackets.
'Right then, a whole bunch of knives and weapons were thrown out of the windows,' said Correction Department spokesman John Taylor.
Officials announced the prison secured at 8:20 a.m.
Ten convicts held hostage by the knife-wielding inmates inside the prison were freed one by one earlher after hours of negotiations with Lack. The last hostage was freed about 3 a.m.
'We tried to convince them they had nothing to gain by keeping them,' said Taylor.
The rioting erupted after a group of inmates who refused to wear the new uniforms were turned away from the mess hall at suppertime.
Taylor said there was 'extensive damage' to the units housing the inmates and the prison cafeteria and commissary were gutted by fire. He said the convicts had also burned the chapel at theprison, which is 55 miles west of Nashville.
Turney Center has room for about 600 inmates but currently houses 782. A federal court has ordered Tennessee to eliminate overcrowding at all 11 prisons the state runs.
At a news conference, spokesmen for the rioters -- James Bragg, 32, of Akron, Ohio, and Michael Garrard, 29, of Clarksville, Tenn. -- said the prisoners were prepared to fight if authorities stormed the prison.
'There will be people killed on both sides,' Garrard said. 'This is not what the inmates want.'
Bragg said authorities have ignored inmates complaints about prison food and overcrowding.
'I wouldn't slop hogs with the food they feed us,' Bragg said. 'There is nothing the residents )inmates) can do about it, but the administration doesn't want to do anything about it.
'Your bathrooms at home are bigger than the 5-by-8 (foot) rooms we have for two men, a desk, a double bunk and clothes. This is not big enough to house a chicken,' he said.
Officials said four unidentified inmates were injured by other convicts in the riot and a fifth suffered a heart attack. Three were treated for severe head injuries and one inmate was treated for stab wounds. All were listed in serious condition, Taylor said.
Bragg, who has served 10 years at Turney for armed robbery and would be eligible for parole Aug. 13, said the riot erupted when 30 inmates were turned away from the dining hall because they were not wearing prison uniforms.
Taylor said five inmates started the disturbance about 6 p.m. in the prison kitchen and 'it gathered steam after that.'
He said the inmates were upset about the new uniforms with striped pants and shirts stenciled 'Department of Corrections' that were mandated by the Legislature last year after a rash of prison escapes.
Bragg said the convicts had destroyed all the toilets and windows in the prison's 26 cellblocks, which each house 22 inmates.
