ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ”

ST. LOUIS — City officials say there’ve been no reports this week of general population inmates at the St. Louis City Justice Center testing positive for COVID-19, but family members and advocates of the inmates say that ongoing concerns about virus spread prompted two disturbances last week at the jail.

Mayoral spokesman Jacob Long said Tuesday there was a “small disbursement” of pepper spray in both cases of unrest, and one detainee was treated for injuries.

Long said he couldn’t be sure of the reason for the disturbances, but Aldermanic President Lewis Reed’s office released a statement Friday saying inmates “feared for their lives due to possible exposure” to COVID-19.

Authorities previously said that a disturbance occurred on Dec. 29 when a group of detainees refused to return to their holding cells. Fifty-six detainees were relocated to the St. Louis Medium Security Institution, also known as the workhouse.

A similar incident occurred Friday and another 45 inmates were moved to the workhouse.

As of this week there were about 715 inmates at the justice center and 145 housed at the workhouse.

“We think that quite a few of them wanted to go to MSI,” Long said Tuesday. “They had their belongings packed up and organized and ready to go. 
 MSI has been operating well under capacity for many months, so there’s more space there, and the CJC has been operating at or near capacity for many months. I think (detainees) are like the rest of us, they’re living under increased stress due to the pandemic.”

Reed’s legislative director, Mary Goodman, said Tuesday that Reed’s office has received emails and phone calls from inmates saying they weren’t being provided with enough masks. She said Reed this week planned to ask about shortages of personal protective equipment.

Long said inmates “have had adequate PPE since the start of the pandemic.”

Litel Joyner’s son, Litel Gilmore, 39, was being held at the justice center until he was moved to the workhouse, Joyner said. Joyner lives in Arizona but receives regular phone calls from his son. Joyner said he intends to protest conditions at the two jails because he doesn’t believe the city is doing an adequate job of protecting inmates from getting sick.

“ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” wasn’t doing nothing for them guys down there,” Joyner said. “A lot of them have taken sick 
 he really is afraid. In fact, all of them are afraid.”

Blake Strode, executive director of the legal advocacy group ArchCity Defenders, said the two disturbances were efforts by the detainees to call attention to the “unnecessary risk” they face at the justice center.

“There’s a huge transparency problem here,” Strode said. “The initial account by (city) administration called this a ‘disturbance’ 
 with no mention of a protest, no mention of concern about health and wellness or illness in the jail. The only reason we know about any of that is through detainees and their loved ones.”

St. Louis Treasurer Tishaura Jones, who’s running for mayor, issued a statement Tuesday calling for “an accurate and public accounting of the current health conditions” at both the justice center and the workhouse.

Groups like Close the Workhouse have long campaigned to shutter that city jail over unsanitary conditions, lack of proper heating and cooling systems, and other concerns. The city’s Board of Aldermen previously planned to have the workhouse closed by Dec. 31 but that deadline was not met and Long declined to comment on future plans for the workhouse.