Inmates at no-smoking prison trade hostage for cigarettes

Inmates at no-smoking prison trade hostage for cigarettes

JOHNSON CITY, Tennessee (AP) -- Two inmates housed in a smoke-free prison traded a hostage for cigarettes after a six-hour standoff.

Billy Grubb, 32, and Bradley Johnson, 25, attacked the guard Monday night, said Howard Carlton, warden of the Northeast Correctional Complex.

"As the night progressed they started saying, 'Look, we'll give up if you let us have some tobacco. If you do that, we'll go back to our cell,"' Carlton said. "They got them some cigarettes, they smoked them and went back to their cell and locked themselves back in."