Missouri Prisoners Engage in Sit-in and Destroy Property Across Racial Lines

The following report about a recent prison rebellion at Tipton Correctional in Missouri was anonymously submitted to It’s Going Down. 

Following a riot that occurred at the Crossroads Correctional Center in Missouri in May, prisoners at Tipton Correctional staged a sit-in and destroyed prison property on the night of July 4^th.

One prisoner wrote in to an anarchist prison newsletter:

We are currently on lock down ‘cause last night (the fourth of July) at nine when the yard closed people staged a sit-in and refused to go inside the house. After about an hour they returned to their housing units but then all the COs left and had us locked inside, and ‘cause this open bay shit got crazy. In one of the housing units they did a lot of damage like knocking down walls, destroying desks, and breaking windows.

We were locked inside the hosing unit all the way till about 8 am when they came in with an emergency riot team and began taking each house out one by one cuffing everybody…The shit was crazy and it’s no telling how long we’ll be on lockdown, but it was good to see black, brown, and whites come together inside.

The same prisoner wrote, “the protest was cause of the petty ass rules and how people are getting treated.” Local news specifically cited a new rule at the facility which prohibits prisoners from congregating in groups.

This disturbance occurs ahead of the scheduled August 21^st national prison strike, which was called for by prisoners in South Carolina and has received pledges of support from others in Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, Florida, and elsewhere.