Photos have been released of the extensive damage done in a protest that disrupted operations at Massachusetts' Bristol County House of Correction on Friday.
The images released by the Bristol County Sheriff's Office showed equipment smashed, beds flipped over, weapons fashioned, trash strewn about the facility and more in the incident that shut down the jail in Dartmouth for hours. (See some of the images below.)
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"They destroyed a lot of property, made a lot of weapons," Sheriff Paul Heroux told reporters Monday, but no one was hurt as officers took back the facility.
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The inmates were protesting being moved around housing units as officials worked to make facility upgrades that would prevent suicides. Twenty people — 17 from one housing unit and three from another — are expected to face charges as the suspected ringleaders of the protest.
Heroux credited the four correctional officers in one unit for activating a contingency measure as the situation got out of control, preventing the inmates from getting outside and the officers from being taken hostage. That allowed time for backup to arrive, negotiate with the inmates and ultimately take back control, the sheriff said.
"If it was just our staff dealing with that when it was just going down … people would have gotten hurt," he said. "That kept us from having a true riot."
Lots of damage was done — on Friday, Heroux estimated that it would cost $100,000 to $200,000 to fix.
Asked on Monday for his message to the inmates, he said, "Please don't do this again. It's not going to go well for you."
The incident began, Heroux has said, when House of Correction staff tried to move inmates out of single our double cells and into a group setting so to facilitate the work. About 17 of the inmates decided they didn't want to move, prompting about 80 in one housing unit to protest starting about 9:30 a.m., forcing officers out of the unit.
The groups provided a list of demands, which Heroux said officials took seriously, but could not accommodate. When officials gave a response, the inmates reportedly tore up the letter.
"They were not really interested in cooperating," Heroux said, noting that some of the problems started when rumors began flying over what the inmates could expect when moved to a different unit. Among those rumors were that there would be less recreational time, less visiting time and other reduced privileges.
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The sheriff said that while the situation went "sideways" and "past the point of no return," he would not call the situation a riot, because despite the damage, the inmates were not being aggressive toward each other.
The people Heroux described as the "ringleaders" have been sent to different facilities to avoid a repeat of the situation. The other inmates were spread out across other housing units.
