Five inmates are in critical condition after a Friday afternoon hoopla broke out at Cook County Jail, a maximum security prison in Chicago.
According to the Chicago Tribune, the fight broke out among the “general population” of the supermaximum security division about 1:30 p.m. Numerous weapons were recovered including two that appear to have been made from part of inhalers. Four of the injured inmates were awaiting trial on murder charges while the fifth was in custody on an armed robbery case, said Cara Smith, a spokeswoman for the jail.
Chicago will be happy to put a disastrous 2016 behind it, with a mind-boggling 780+ homicides during the calendar year, the highest total in more than 20 years. 2017 didn’t start much better, as the first day saw another three fatal shootings. To put that in perspective, the country’s third-biggest city has had more homicides this year than the only two bigger American cities — New York and Los Angeles — combined, per The Washington Post.