ST. LOUIS — The chaos that boiled over in the City Justice Center on Saturday was an organized protest by detainees over inhumane conditions inside the jail, activists said Sunday.
Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO) St. Louis held a virtual rally to express its support of the detainees and provide resources to families of those in custody the day after more than 100 in the city jail broke out of their cells, smashed windows and set fires on the fourth floor of the downtown building. A corrections officer was attacked by detainees and had to be hospitalized. He was treated at a hospital and released.
"They are demanding proper heat, they want proper (personal protective equipment), proper clothing and visits from families, who can visit them from the other side of the glass," EXPO St. Louis member Tracy Stanton said in the online news conference Sunday. "This was an act of courage that was staged to reinforce these issues because their needs are still not being met."
Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards didn't return a request for comment Sunday.
This is the third uprising since December at the City Justice Center. One detainee was treated for injuries last month. Staff said detainees have been fearful of catching COVID-19, though city officials denied that there were any positive cases among the general jail population. City staff have said that inmates are provided with adequate PPE and are tested upon request.
Activists are claiming that there are outbreaks of COVID-19 both within the City Justice Center and the St. Louis Medium Security Institution, also known as the workhouse. Inez Bordeaux, an activist with the legal advocacy group ArchCity Defenders, said she's taken calls on the organization's jail hotline and heard from detainees about their concerns.
"I've spoken to dozens of people who say the same things," Bordeaux said. "They don't have access to COVID testing, they don't have access to PPE, they don't have cleaning supplies, the staff has been mistreating them, they don't have access to adequate nutritious food. That's why the uprising happened. Because people are living in inhumane, unconstitutional conditions that if we treated animals this way, someone would call PETA or the ASPCA."
Activists have called for years for the closure of the workhouse, which they say is dilapidated and unsafe. The Board of Aldermen promised to close the facility by the end of 2020, but since then some detainees have been relocated to the workhouse. Aldermanic President Lewis Reed, who is running for mayor, said he doesn't believe it makes sense to close the workhouse when the City Justice Center is nearly full and the workhouse has adequate space to separate inmates from one another, allaying concerns about spreading disease.
Matthew Mahaffey, district defender in the Missouri public defender's office in St. Louis, said the clients he and other defenders represent at the city jails have complained about not having masks or enough clothes and about the cold temperatures.
"We've been hearing that from our clients for quite a while," Mahaffey said, adding that family members of detainees have told him the inmates have been denied food and water following the riot. "We do follow up with the jail when (detainees) tell us these things, and (jail staff) have been quick to respond and say that's not accurate. But that has not stopped that information from coming to us consistently."
Mahaffey said it was "almost impossible" for him to believe Edwards' statement to media on Saturday that no reason was given for dozens of inmates damaging property after manipulating the locks on their cells and slipping out.
He also said Edwards' statement that no detainees in the facility are in for low-level felonies is false, since Mahaffey has spoken with attorneys who represent clients in the city jail charged with lower-level offenses like burglary, drug possession or possession of a firearm.
"I have to wonder if this is a culmination of the reality of individuals being incarcerated for quite a bit of time in a pretrial setting," Mahaffey said, "and it's been extended due to the pandemic, and they don't see an end in sight ... I can imagine why it would lead to someone wanting to protest."
City Comptroller Darlene Green called for a "full and thorough investigation" into what led to the disturbance and said detainees deserve adequate protection from COVID-19. Treasurer Tishaura Jones, who is running for mayor, issued a statement calling the uprising "an indictment of the entire criminal justice system."
Andrew Jones, a vice president at Southwest Electric Cooperative and the only Republican running for mayor, said that the facility's malfunctioning locks make it not only unsafe for detainees, but for corrections staff, and said if elected he would do a full evaluation of both of the city's jails.
U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-St. Louis, tweeted Sunday on the need for "decarceration."
