Multiple hospitalized after Macomb Correctional Facility brawl, lawmakers demand change

MACOMB COUNTY, Mich. (FOX 2) - Multiple corrections officers and a prisoner were sent to the hospital after a fight broke out at the Macomb Correctional Facility on Monday. This time, it has prompted Michigan lawmakers to call for reform.

What they're saying:

State officials who oversee the prison say there was a prisoner-on-prisoner fight that prompted one of the inmates to be sent to the hospital to get sutures for an injury near his eye. 

During that scuffle, state officials tell FOX 2, an officer was pinned between a cell door and another staff member and hurt their arm. 

That officer was hospitalized along with another who suffered exposure to some kind of chemical.

State Rep. Dave Prestin has been one of several lawmakers in both parties calling for reform in the state prison system for a while now.

"The culture that is within the correctional officers right now, I would say, is at an all-time low," Prestin said.

He says attacks like this one happen practically every day in prisons across Michigan and are the result of low morale for corrections officers, and too much power centralized in Lansing. 

What's next:

Among the changes he’s working to make, he says pensions need to be back for corrections officers. 

"Try to get the corrections department back on a level playing field and put these guys in a position where they can succeed instead of every day being forced overtime, working multiple shifts - multiple days without end," he said. 

Officials say all those hospitalized are in stable condition.