NATCHEZ — It’s been two weeks since Anna Henderson got a call from her brother, Javier Contreas.

Since then, he — along with 2,000-plus other prisoners — has been on lockdown at the Adams County Correctional Center.

Contreas’ last call came from the prison’s inmate phone bank, and he asked his sister to make sure someone knew something was going on.

The something that was going on was a prison riot, which eventually resulted in the death of 24-year-old correctional officer Catlin Carithers and the injury of 16 other ACCC employees and a number of inmates.

“(Contreas) said, ‘I want someone to come out and report this. You can kind of hear the other inmates in there getting really rowdy, and we need to get somebody to come out here and record what is going on, so we can have proof of what is going on,’” Henderson said.

What caused the riot is still unclear. During the nine-hour incident, a person purporting to be a prisoner called a news station and told a reporter there the riot was in retaliation for poor prisoner treatment. Henderson said her brother told her the guards had been “kind of rough” with the prisoners lately.

In the wake of the incident, a spokesman with Corrections Corporation of America — the parent company of the privately owned ACCC, which houses federal immigration prisoners — said such claims were “unconfirmed information” and that the prison could not comment on an ongoing investigation.

Adams County Sheriff Chuck Mayfield, who was the most vocal law enforcement official following the riot, said the claims of ill treatment were untrue; instead, he said a fight between rival gangs spread as a mass hysteria overtook the prison population, causing the uprising.

Now, 14 days after the temporary prison takeover, the prison remains on lockdown for security reasons and so the investigation into the cause of the riot can continue unhindered.

While the Adams County Sheriff’s Office led the initial response on the ground to the incident, the FBI is the lead investigative agency.

FBI spokesperson Deborah Madden said that because the matter is an ongoing investigation, the agency cannot comment on what the timeline for the investigation will be or what the potential cause of the riot was.

The FBI is serving as the lead investigative agency in the case due to a statutory authority that gives it jurisdiction over the matter, Madden said.

Like the FBI, CCA officials are keeping tight-lipped about the investigation.

“CCA management and staff continue to work closely and in full cooperation with the FBI, Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Adams County Sheriff’s Office in collecting evidence and identifying all those involved in the disturbance,” ACCC spokeswoman Emilee Beach said.

“Specific details relating to the incident are pending the outcome of these efforts.  Currently, we are very focused on supporting the investigation being led by federal authorities.”

Beach said while inmate movement and communication is limited, inmates are allowed to send and receive written correspondence.

Henderson, meanwhile, hasn’t heard from her brother, even in writing.

“He would call me almost every day, and he would write me two-three letters a week,” she said.

“I really kind of am worried — we all have been worried — but he did tell us, ‘Don’t worry, I am going to be OK.’ He said, ‘Most likely, I won’t have contact with y’all for a while.’”

Following the riot, food had to be brought into the prison from another CCA facility while repairs were made to the kitchen area, but Beach said that food is now being prepared at the facility.

In the weeks since the riot, Beach said employees at the correctional center have shown great inner strength.

“Both during and after the disturbance, our staff members have shown courage and resilience,” she said. “They’ve been a powerful reminder of the character and professional skills that are required to provide this vital public service. The tragic loss of a colleague has, of course, been difficult, but our professionals have pulled together and found great strength within themselves as a team and a family.”

While the prison does not house Adams County inmates, the ACSO responded to the scene and surrounded the perimeter of the prison to ensure none of the prisoners escaped.

Mayfield said the sheriff’s office is still calculating the total cost of overtime for the response. That calculation has been somewhat hindered, he said, by the fact that some deputies don’t want to claim the man-hours they contributed.

“Most of my officers didn’t want to put in overtime, because they said they were doing it for the community,” Mayfield said.

“If it is for a non-profit and they want to help (without overtime) that is fine, but they need to get overtime for (the prison response), because it was a dangerous situation, and lives were in danger, I feel like they need to be paid for that, whether they want to or not.”

The ACCC houses federal immigration prisoners, most of whose crimes involve illegal reentry into the country.

One other CCA employee has died in the line of duty in the company’s three decades of operating prisons. Beach said that incident happened more than a decade ago at another facility when a correctional counselor was the subject of an inmate assault.