The North Carolina Jail Inmate Takeover at Bertie-Martin Regional Jail ended Monday afternoon after inmates overpowered correctional officers, seized parts of the facility and held two officers hostage for hours. By the time agents with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and FBI secured the jail, all inmates and staff were safe and accounted for.
For Tyrone Ruffin, the scale of the breach was stark. He said the jail had been taken over and two correctional officers had been held hostage, a description that matched what investigators later said began around 5 a.m. Monday, when inmates assaulted on-duty correctional officers and took control of portions of the jail. At the time, 88 inmates and three correctional officers were inside the facility.
The initial call reached the Bertie County Sheriff's Office around 5 a.m., and the first deputy arrived within two minutes but could not get inside. More deputies followed, and a secure perimeter went up as dozens of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies converged on the jail. One correctional officer escaped shortly after the takeover began. The other two were held until negotiations led to their safe release around 9:30 a.m., along with 18 inmates. About 20 minutes later, another group of inmates was released.
What makes the sequence harder to square is that officials said everyone inside the jail was ultimately safe and accounted for, even after the day began with an assault on officers and a hostage standoff. Those injured received medical treatment, but authorities have not said what damage investigators found inside the jail after they got back in. Inmates were moved by bus to other detention facilities while that assessment continued.
The response lasted nearly 10 hours before the SBI and FBI secured the facility Monday afternoon. The immediate crisis is over, but the unanswered question now is what investigators conclude about how inmates were able to overpower officers and control part of the jail for so long.
