One Dead in Crash of Prisoner Van

A private security guard driving a prisoner van was killed and several others were injured, three critically, when the van carrying three guards and nine inmates drove off an interstate highway embankment and flipped on its roof Sunday, police said.

The van's driver, a 50-year-old security officer for a private prisoner transport agency, was pronounced dead by coroner's officials at the site of the single-vehicle crash off Interstate 59 in the Hattiesburg area, police said.

Authorities said the van was carrying prisoners from Texas and Louisiana to different detention centers located along the U.S. East coast. All 12 occupants had to be cut from the wreckage of the white van, which lay crumpled with its windows shattered.

One guard and two prisoners remained in critical condition, Hattiesburg Police Department spokesman Synarus Green said late Sunday.

Green issued a statement saying another guard and six other prisoners remained hospitalized with various injuries. Another prisoner was treated and released Sunday and was being held at a regional jail in Forrest County.

The conditions of the injured were not immediately released by authorities late Sunday.

Green also said authorities were not releasing further information about the driver or the company of the private transport agency that he worked for until relatives have been notified. Other occupants also were not identified.

Police said they were called shortly before 7 a.m. to an area off Interstate 59 North in the Hattiesburg.

Green said the van had driven off the right shoulder of the road into the embankment and then flipped over on its roof. He said ambulances took the injured to hospitals after they were extricated from the wreckage and detectives were dispatched to open an investigation.

His police statement said the van was owned by a private agency.