Elvin Cook, 31, was killed on Monday at Limestone Correctional Facility in Harvest, Alabama. He was serving a five-year sentence. Reports received by EJI indicate that Mr. Cook was killed inside a cell in Limestone’s restrictive housing unit, where men are confined in one- or two-person cells for up to 23 hours per day.
According to local media, a man serving a five-year sentence for destruction of state property has been charged with Mr. Cook’s murder.
Mr. Cook is the fourth person killed at Limestone in the past six months. On March 5, Taurus White, 28, was stabbed to death shortly before completing his sentence. On March 23, Samuel Ward, 39, was killed inside his housing dormitory. And on June 27, Brelin McAlpine, 26, was stabbed to death at the prison inside a housing area.
Limestone is Alabama’s largest prison. From 2009 to May 2021, the prison reported that no incarcerated people were killed. Since then, there have been homicides every year.
The prison also has seen a dramatic increase in nonfatal assaults. According to statistical data from the Alabama Department of Corrections, Limestone reported an average of 30 assaults per year between 2009 and 2019. In the past four years, assaults have skyrocketed from 48 in 2019 to 274 in 2023.
The reported data is only the tip of the iceberg, as many violent incidents go unobserved and unreported by ADOC.
“Limestone is in a dire need of assistance at this point,” a correctional officer who was later terminated by ADOC for speaking to reporters told local media in 2022. “[N]o one is willing to give us assistance in the higher levels of our department. It is almost like they want us to get hurt or fail.”
Following reporting on state corrections officials’ failure to address the crisis of violence at Limestone, the Justice Department said in a rare statement to local media that the prison “fails to provide constitutionally adequate conditions and that prisoners experience serious harm, including deadly harm.”