Fight breaks out at penitentiary one month after similar violence that injured officer

DOC says no correction officers were injured

A photo taken at 3 a.m. on March 29, 2024, shows interior lights in the South Dakota State Penitentiary’s East Hall. The lights stayed on overnight after a second night of unrest. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)

Another round of violence erupted Sunday on the campus of the South Dakota State Penitentiary, the Department of Corrections has confirmed.

The fight between inmates came a little more than a month after two other incidents on the penitentiary campus, one of which injured a female correctional officer.

Those earlier events occurred shortly before the first meeting of a state work group debating the future of the oldest portions of the 144-year-old prison grounds in Sioux Falls. The female correctional officer was injured in the penitentiary, while the other fight took place between inmates in the maximum security Jameson Annex.

The work group toured both the penitentiary and Jameson Annex on April 2.

Michael Winder, spokesman for the department, did not say how many people were involved in Sunday’s violence, which he described via email as “a fight.” There were no “life-threatening injuries,” he wrote, and no correctional officers were injured.

“It is an ongoing investigation,” Winder wrote.

Winder did not reply to questions on the location of the violence or how it may have been quelled, but the family member of one inmate told South Dakota Searchlight that the event involved inmates in East Hall.

East Hall was the location of two nights of unrest just over a year ago at the penitentiary, which followed a temporary shutdown of tablet communications. Eleven inmates were charged with crimes for those incidents.

Most of those inmates, prosecuted by the South Dakota Attorney General’s Office, have since taken plea deals for intentional damage to property. A man charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and another charged with reckless burning await trial, court records show. One inmate was acquitted of intentional damage to property at trial after raising questions about the security footage upon which the charge was based.

As of last week, no charges had been filed by the Attorney General’s Office for the violence that took place just before the first prison work group meeting in Sioux Falls.

Loved ones behind bars told Nicole Lloyd of Sioux Falls that Sunday’s violence involved more than a dozen people, originated in the chow hall and resulted in the use of pepper spray and a lockdown of inmates across the penitentiary.