Police investigate fatal prison melee

Police and prison officials are investigating a melee at the city prison Tuesday night that left one inmate fatally stabbed and three others injured.

Officers were interviewing numerous inmates Wednesday who witnessed or participated in the fight, which police said involved dozens of people and came after an inspection earlier in the day that uncovered drugs and weapons.

Earl Gene Bostic, 42, of the city's Southwest section, was killed in the fight at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in the Northeast. Bostic had been at the prison since Jan. 1, awaiting trial on robbery and firearms charges.

One man was taken to Hahnemann University Hospital in critical condition and is expected to survive, said prison spokesman Robert Eskind. Another man was treated and released, and a fourth was treated for his injuries at the prison. All victims were stabbed multiple times with handmade weapons of some kind, police said.

No corrections officers were injured, Eskind said.

The fight began about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday in the day room of the prison's "C" pod, a housing area that consists of cells surrounding a common room.

The housing unit has the capacity for 96 inmates, Eskind said, and is currently close to full. For several hours each night, inmates can use the day room to watch television, make phone calls or for other activities.

Police and prison officials said it was not clear how the argument started, or how many weapons were involved.

"We're trying to piece together what happened," said Eskind, who said police recovered two weapons.

The housing unit has been put on lockdown since the fight, meaning the inmates remain in their cells and receive no visitors.

Earlier Tuesday, correctional officers had conducted a "shakedown" of the housing unit and found drugs, weapons and cell phones, said Lorenzo North, president of the Prison Guards Union Local 159. The unit was placed on lockdown for several hours after that, and North said it should have remained so for the entire day.

"When you find drugs in a housing area, you don't know what's going to happen that day," he said. "I'm not saying drugs had anything to do with the fight, but I believe it should have been locked down all day."

Eskind said the prison conducts regular shakedowns in an attempt to uncover weapons and other contraband.

"We follow the intelligence we receive from various sources," he said.

But North said the shakedowns should be more frequent and more extensive.

"People want to feel that their sons and daughters are safe when they're locked up," he said. "We've got to keep in mind that we're outnumbered by the inmates."

The last homicide at the jail was in 2009, Eskind said, when one inmate attacked another inside a cell.