Cells in the St. Louis Justice Center are shown on Sept. 17, 2002. Photo by Ken Shimizu of the Post-Dispatch.
UPDATED at 4:45 p.m. Wednesday with more information about the incident.
ST. LOUIS — Detainees at the downtown St. Louis jail caused a disruption Tuesday afternoon when roughly 20 people refused to return to their cells following their allotted recreation time, a top jail official said.
Primarily younger detainees with “pretty violent histories” housed in a unit at the City Justice Center destroyed items including a microwave, TV and computer and let roughly 40 other detainees out of their cells by tampering with faulty locks and pressing buttons on a control panel, acting city corrections commissioner Jeff Carson said.
“(Most) people were not being disruptive,” Carson said. “But the ones who wanted to be a part … we went in and got them, nobody was injured, and placed them in a segregated area.”
There was no broader damage to the building, and the unit was on lockdown pending an investigation, Carson said.
The incident was the first known disruption since April when detainees escaped their cells due to faulty locks and broke windows, threw items out of the building and chanted “We want court dates” in reference to delays in court appearances and trials caused by the pandemic.
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Originally Appeared Here