(NBC) – More than 100 inmates took over a section of the City Justice Center in downtown St. Louis, injuring a corrections officer at the facility, officials said.
The incident began around 2:30 a.m. Saturday in a fourth-floor unit when a “defiant” inmate “who was very, very upset” got into a fight with the corrections officer, Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards said at a news conference. The officer was then jumped by other inmates in the unit.
During the fight, several detainees were able to “jimmy” the locks on their cells, open them and get into the unit, according to Edwards. As jail employees were trying to get the corrections officer to safety, the inmates accessed a lock panel system, and “other detainees were released from their cells into the unit.”
Edwards said the unit was breached and inmates were able to get into a hallway. A second unit on the floor also “started to have defiant detainees,” he said. “Those detainees were also very aggressive, very violent. They too were able to be released from their cells because those locks were also jimmied. And they were also able to breach their unit,” he told reporters. The incident involved 117 inmates. READ MORE
