UPDATE, 12/8/16: Prison officials have confirmed prisoners at Donovan State Prison used an illegal cell phone to shoot video of the Mannequin Challenge and upload it to YouTube.
A video making the rounds on YouTube appears to show local prison inmates using a smuggled cell phone to record the Mannequin Challenge from behind bars.
The prisoner Mannequin Challenge starts with an inmate sitting on a toilet, pondering his future. Then we see another inmate with another illegal phone. Three others are frozen in a fighting stance. At least two of the 14 men in the video have cellphones behind bars.
10News contacted the prison for a comment.
"That is definitely a concern. Inmates are not supposed to have cell phones, that is considered contraband in California state prisons. Cellphone possession in prison is illegal,” Terry Thornton, deputy press secretary at the State Department of Corrections said.
Thornton didn't know about the video and thanked 10News for bringing it to her attention. We found the video on YouTube after someone called us with a tip about it. This video was posted last month and has more than 4,700 views. In the comment section, someone wrote "This is at Donovan State."
“We have not yet confirmed that these are Donovan Correctional Facility inmates,” Thornton said.
But she was able to confirm the prisoner clothing is definitely California prison garb. 10News does not know the original source of the video and who posted it on YouTube because it has been shared and posted so many times. Thornton said there will be a thorough investigation into how those cell phones made their way inside the prison.
