By Darian Douraghy – The Postmillennial
A slew of police, firefighters, and other emergency responders were deployed to the State of Minnesota’s Stillwater Prison on Sunday morning in response to a group of prisoners reportedly seizing control of part of the compound.
The facility went into an emergency lockdown on Sunday after about 100 prisoners refused to return to their cells.
AFSCME Council 5, which represents Minnesota correctional officers, blamed the incident on understaffing in a statement it gave on Sunday afternoon:
“Today’s incident at MCF-Stillwater is endemic and highlights the truth behind the operations of the MN Department of Corrections with chronic understaffing leading to upset offenders due to the need to restrict programming and/or recreation time when there are not enough security staff to protect the facility. Our union believes to our core that our correctional facilities cannot have transformational offender programming without sufficient facility security, we can and must have both.”
In 2018, an officer was murdered by an inmate at the exact same site, with reports saying he was beaten to death by a man with a hammer.
Department records show there are around 1,200 inmates booked at the facility.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.