COLUMBIA - Two S.C. Department of Corrections inmates were arrested Friday in connection with last fall’s riot at Lee Correctional Institution, in which two corrections officers were held hostage and injured during the course of a five-hour standoff.

Tyrone Singletary, 24, and Jacob Lynch, 23, both of Columbia, are charged with two counts of taking a hostage and with one count each of participating in a riot, assault on a correctional officer and concealing a weapon, State Law Enforcement Division spokeswoman Kathryn Richardson said in a press release issued Friday. Singletary and Lynch were booked at the Richland County Detention Center on Friday morning.

The arrests were the result of a joint investigation conducted by SLED and the state Department of Corrections, Richardson said. The case will be prosecuted by the 3rd Circuit Solicitor’s Office.

The riot began about 5 p.m. Oct. 29 at the facility near Bishopville. Several inmates, armed with homemade knives, took over a wing that houses about 260 prisoners.

Corrections Department Inspector General Charlie Sheppard said after the incident that only a handful of inmates were believed to have been involved in the incident and rioted because of the poor treatment they claimed they received.

The media played an important role in the evening’s events. The uprising ended after a television reporter was allowed access to the inmates. One of the officers, who suffered a minor stab wound to his arm, was released just after 10 p.m.; the other was released soon after.

Also, first reports of the standoff were relayed to the media by family members of inmates who called them to say they were unharmed.

A hostage negotiation team and a special prison inspection team were established at the facility to halt the uprising. SLED also sent its SWAT team, helicopter and bloodhounds to the prison.

Lee Correctional Institution, which opened in 1993, is a Level 3 all-male facility, meaning that it is a high-security institution designed primarily to house violent offenders with longer sentences.

A similar situation occurred at the prison more than four years ago, when a pair of inmates at the prison held two employees, a secretary and a teacher, hostage. That incident was resolved after a 13-hour standoff Sept. 8, 1999, when inmates John New and Wesley Floyd, armed with a homemade knife, surrendered after releasing their second hostage.

New and Floyd were charged with two counts of hostage taking and one count of possession of a weapon. A motive was never established.

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