Uprising at County Jail in Farmington, New Mexico

Report on recent uprising at San Juan County Adult Detention Center in Farmington, New Mexico. Originally posted to Abolition Media Worldwide. 

An uprising broke out at San Juan County Adult Detention Center on July 13 in response to a reduction in hot meals and a lack of COVID-19 testing. Over a third of the prisoners at San Juan County Adult Detention Center have already tested positive for coronavirus.

35 prison rebels donned makeshift body armor and barricaded themselves on the upper tier of the jail armed with shards of porcelain from broken toilets.

Fires were set in two prison housing areas during the uprising.

Imprisoned militants wrapped books and magazines around their torsos for use as makeshift body armor, and some threw shards of porcelain.

There were 345 people imprisoned at San Juan County Adult Detention Center the morning of July 13, 147 of whom have tested positive for coronavirus. The COVID-19 positive prisoners have been quarantined in 5 pods.

There is no provision in the state’s notification system for informing prisoners of their COVID-19 test results, and that lack of results was one spark for Monday’s events.

Prisoners have also only received one hot meal per day.

On Monday morning, the uprising continued, and prisoners refused their sack lunches.

A prison administrator was attacked by rebels in the facility’s B6 pod. Then imprisoned militants broke a fire sprinkler head off in the bathroom, flooding the pod.

Prison rebels also set fire to blankets in the B6 pod.

The uprising continued in the B5 pod, where prison rebels stated another fire and broke apart a bunk and used it as a battering ram to attempt to break down a fire door.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been used as an excuse to increase already harsh repression against people captured by the US prison enslavement system. Prison rebels continue to fight back against the draconian conditions imposed on them.