KINCHELOE, MI -- It was a deadly day at a Northern Michigan prison. 3 prisoners hijacked a semi-truck and tried to break out.
One was shot and killed.
This all happened at 9:10 Thursday morning at the Kinross Correctional Facility up in Chippewa County.
The state says these men, Andrew Ross, Brian Davidson and Seth Privacky, assaulted the driver of a Michigan State Industry semi, stole the vehicle and rammed a fence.
Officers shot and killed Privacky -- the other men were caught and locked back up.
'This time, all the prison sirens were going off, I think they were going off for a good 20 minutes, and then I heard, what sounded to me maybe like gunfire, or maybe it was just the fact that they were going through the fence,' said Tonia Dumback, who lives close to the prison.
'We kind of live through it every day, you never think they're going to do something like this, but yeah, it does happen,' said Brian Shepard, who lives near the jail.
Many of the employees I talked to, two that have worked here for more than 20 years, say they have never seen any attempt this serious taken by any inmate to break out of the secured prison walls. Prisoners hi-jacked a semi truck that was delivering food and attempted to break out of the prison walls. These pictures were taken by Brian Shepard, who heard the sirens and was one of the first to see the action.
'Grabbed my camera, came up here, started snapping pictures, and found out a little later that there was three of them, two were apprehended, and one was shot,' said Shepard.
'The prisoner continued to run, would not respond to the staff directions, and was shot and killed,' said Warden Jeffrey Woods.
Warden Jeffrey Woods says the fence did what it was supposed to do, it stopped the prisoners. Alarms went off, staff responded immediately, and that's when the prisoner was shot.
'Just a pop, if you were hunting, and you heard somebody out in the distance shooting, that's what it sounded like,' said Eyewitness Lester Webb.
'All of our security systems protected the public like they were supposed to, as well as the investigation going on, and the officers responding to the scene,' said the Warden.
Here's the truck the inmates tried to escape in, you can see the damage left behind when it tried to run through the barbed-wire fence. For the warden, he says it's constant work to try to stay ahead of a prisoner's next ploy, and in this business, you don't know what to expect.
'Many of these guys, this is as good as it gets for them, it's a level 2 medium security for a lot of lifers that are doing all day, so when you think of what they're doing inside and how they plan, you know, certainly, I'm sure they all think about it once and a while,' said the Warden.
For the community, they're thankful for the officers commitment for keeping everyone safe, but it does add a little uncertainty, that is, what is being thought up as these men serve their time.
'Now I kind of worry more, because like I said, I live across the field here, have little kids, so yeah, it's kind of spooky,' said Shepard.
'It was just very eye-opening to think like something like this could happen,' said Dumback.
Nobody in the prison was hurt. The driver assaulted was not seriously hurt.
The Warden tells me at this time, they have a temporary fence in place and by tomorrow, the permanent fence will be back up. He says until then, armed guards will secure the gaping hole that the truck left. For the two prisoners that were captured, they have been sent to a different prison and have been put in a segregation unit until the investigation is complete.
That investigation could take days, weeks, or even months.
And on a side note, people I spoke with today says this is the first major attempt since a helicopter was flown onto the property to try to help an inmate escape.
