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St. Louis: Righteous Prison Rebellion Against Inhumane Conditions and COVID Dangers

February 8, 2021 | revcom.us

 

On February 6, prisoners rebelled at the St. Louis City Justice Center (CJC) where over 600 men are being kept behind bars.

The images have been dramatic—and heartening for all those who hate this system of oppression and how it warehouses and brutalizes millions of people, especially Black and Latino men.

According to news reports—and we can see this in photos and videos: From broken windows on an upper floor, the prisoners stood with bandanas over their faces, chanting and waving signs to let the world know their demands. They held up messages including ones with “Free” with different names. One said “Free 57,” referring to the prisoners who were put in solitary confinement after an earlier rebellion. They set things on fire and threw furniture and other things to the ground below.

Reportedly, around 2:30 am after a scuffle between a prisoner and a guard, a group of prisoners were able to jimmy the locks, then gain access to the locking system and free others. Officials were only able to gain “control” after many hours (until about 10 am), using tear gas against the rebels. Officials then immediately put 55 prisoners in the segregation unit, and another 65 were transferred to what officials said was a “more secure facility” (the translation into real talk of what they called a “more secure facility” is an even more horrific dungeon with even more sadistic methods of control and assault on people's humanity).

This uprising, and two other recent rebellions at CJC in late December and on January 1, have raised demands against inhumane conditions and COVID dangers, including how those testing positive for COVID or showing COVID symptoms are being put together with other prisoners. Prisoners have also raised demands about limited visits and courts not hearing their cases—giving them no hope of getting out of the horrendous situation they face in jail.

ArchCityDefenders, which describes themselves as “a holistic legal advocacy organization that combats the criminalization of poverty and state violence, especially in communities of color,” says they have been getting calls from people inside the jail for weeks with complaints about lack of safety and health protocols, inhumane conditions, and mistreatment. After the January rebellion, ArchCityDefenders tweeted how officials “first called those January protests a ‘disturbance’ that happened for unknown reasons, and then insisted there were no COVID cases in the jail.” And, “Just a week after, we learned that more than 80 detainees had tested positive. And the protests were largely based on COVID concerns.”

Now prison officials have been telling the press (who dutifully reported this) that the prisoners don’t have any demands and are just “very angry, defiant, violent people.” And the lie continues that no prisoners at CJC have tested positive for COVID-19.

This system uses the most brutal ways to “control and contain” the masses of people—subjecting them to conditions of poverty and desperation, police brutality and murder, and mass incarceration. And now, due to the workings of this system, Black people and other people of color are way disproportionately getting COVID and NOT getting vaccinations. This heightened danger of getting COVID is even truer for those at CJC and other jails and prisons around the country. According to the Marshall Project and the Associated Press, one in every five state and federal prisoners in the United States has tested positive for the corona virus, a rate more than four times as high as the general population (emphasis added).

The prisoners at CJC are determined the world hears their voices. Anyone opposed to injustice, anyone with a heart, needs to support these rebels and their demands to be treated like human beings.

The prisoners stand with bandanas over their faces, chanting and waving signs to let the world know their demands. They hold up messages including ones with Free” with different names. One said “Free 57,” referring to the prisoners who were put in solitary confinement after an earlier rebellion. Photo: AP

The prisoners set things on fire and threw furniture and other things to the ground below. Photo: AP