Police say an MS-13 gang member stabbed another inmate inside a Youngstown, Ohio prison.

It happened Wednesday afternoon. The place was the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center on Hubbard Road. Police reports put the time at about 4 p.m., WFMJ reported.

This is not a state prison. A private company runs it for money. The company is CoreCivic. The prison opened in 1997. It holds state and federal inmates. It can hold about 2,016 people. As of 2017, it also held about 550 people for the U.S. Marshals and about 200 for ICE.

Police say the whole thing started with wet paint.

Two inmates were painting steps in a common area. Their names are Monroe Merrell and Manuel Erazo-Alvarado. A third inmate stepped in the wet paint. A camera caught what came next.

"Merrell shoved and punched the victim, causing him and Erazo-Alvarado to fall down the stairs," the police report says.

Then Erazo-Alvarado "pulled out a homemade shank from his pocket," police wrote. A shank is a knife made by hand inside a lockup. Police say he stabbed the man "multiple times in the shoulder and back."

The hurt inmate is in stable condition. News reports have not named him.

Merrell threw the first hits, the police report says. News reports have not said what charge Merrell faces. His age was not made public either.

Erazo-Alvarado is already serving time for murder, police said. The police report also ties him to MS-13. News reports have not said what charge he will face here. His age was not made public.

This prison has a long, bloody record.

WFMJ counted at least 27 stabbings there since the start of 2024. That count leaves out the fights and the beatings. The station said the real number could be higher. Records from a private prison are hard to get.

The trouble is not new. One inmate was stabbed to death there in 1998. Six men broke out through the fence that same year.

A former guard told WFMJ that the staff is stretched thin. He said he was asked to work up to 200 hours in a two week pay period. He said he covered whole cell blocks by himself.

"You've got people that start quitting that never should have worked there in the first place," the former guard told WFMJ.

The company does not agree. CoreCivic told WFMJ the prison "remains fully staffed and well equipped to meet the needs of our government partners and those in our care."

This is not the first knife case there this year.

In April, another inmate was stabbed inside the same prison. Three inmates were arguing in a hallway. Staff opened a door. Two men got to the third one, WFMJ reported. He had three holes in him. They looked like they came from a screwdriver. Police never found the weapon. That man lived.

Police wrote the report on this week's stabbing. Erazo-Alvarado stays behind bars either way. He is already doing time for murder.

The bigger question is the prison itself. A former guard says the place runs short handed. Inmates there keep getting cut. Homemade knives keep turning up inside. And a wet step was all it took this week.

El Tejano covered a different MS-13 prison case in July. Bryan Galicia-Barillas, 29, hit a top federal prison boss in Mississippi. A judge gave him 18 more months on top of his old sentence. You can read that story here: https://www.eltejanorgv.com/ms-13-inmate-gets-18-more-months-for-hitting-prison-official/

That case is not this case. It is a different man in a different state.

A charge is not proof. Everyone is innocent until a court says otherwise.