A pre-dawn assault on jail staff in eastern North Carolina set off an hours-long crisis that ended without anyone killed.

A takeover before dawn

Around 5 a.m. Monday, inmates at the Bertie-Martin Regional Detention Center in Windsor assaulted on-duty staff and seized control of parts of the facility, WBTV reported. Three guards were on shift overseeing 88 inmates; one escaped in the initial chaos, and the other two were taken hostage. Bertie County Sheriff Tyrone Ruffin said his office got a call shortly after 5 a.m. reporting the jail had been overrun. "Our top priority is the safety of our staff, inmates, and the surrounding community," he said. Authorities set up a perimeter and asked the public to stay away as more than a dozen agencies responded, including the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and the FBI.

Hostages released

For several hours, negotiators worked to reach the inmates in control of the building. Around 9:30 a.m., the two officers were released unharmed, along with a group of inmates brought out under the negotiated arrangement, WRAL reported. More inmates were escorted out over the next few hours; by midday, roughly 80 had been removed and transferred to other secure facilities. At 1:47 p.m., the SBI said everyone was accounted for and the incident was over. Some people were injured and treated during the standoff, but no fatalities were reported.

A jail under strain

Officials said the detention center, which serves Bertie and Martin counties, would stay closed pending a damage assessment, with inmates housed elsewhere in the interim. The facility had faced documented staffing shortages for years — at times short as many as eight detention officers — straining the remaining staff across long overtime shifts, and a new administrator was brought in last year to stabilize operations. Whether those conditions contributed to Monday's unrest was not addressed at a news briefing, and the inmates' motive or demands were not disclosed. The SBI and FBI are investigating how the inmates gained control and what set off the assault.