The ACLU of Missouri on Wednesday sued the St. Louis City Department of Corrections for not complying with a request for records pertaining to pepper spray incidents between corrections officers and detainees at the St. Louis City Justice Center (CJC).
The suit comes a few months after ArchCity Defenders, the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center, Rights Behind Bars, and Saint Louis University Law Clinic in June filedsuit on behalf of three detainees alleging excessive pepper spraying by corrections officers.
The St. Louis American reported that former Corrections Commissioner Dale Glass in March approved a $17,379 order for the chemical, or as much pepper spray as the department had purchased in the previous six years combined.
St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones’ administration, which took over in April, could not confidently account for the large purchase.
Wednesday’s suit claims ArchCity Defenders attorney Maureen Hanlon in April submitted a written sunshine request to the St. Louis City Division of Corrections seeking access to all use of force reports completed by correctional staff for the prior six months that relate to the use of a chemical agent at the CJC. Lawyers say the city has failed to provide a single record six months later.
“The Department of Corrections stands out as egregiously and routinely employing a custom of refusing to provide substantive responses to requests for months, if not years,” Hanlon said in a statement. “These long-standing delays and lack of transparency have meant the public lacks access to accurate information about issues such as correctional officer misconduct.”
Hanlon also noted this lack of transparency has persisted through various leadership changes.
The St. Louis American submitted a similar Sunshine request on July 19 and was told the records would be available no sooner than Oct. 11.
“This is particularly galling given the Department of Corrections practice of providing the media immediate access to videos or other records to stoke public fear and outrage and provide a narrow framing for alleged incidents of detainee misconduct,” a press release from the ACLU of Missouri stated. “If the city can immediately release sensational videos within hours of those incidents, it makes the department’s refusal to provide documents concerning the frequent allegations of correctional officer misconduct even more problematic.”
Joseph Sims, the city’s sunshine law coordinator, declined to comment on the matter when reached by phone.
“If the city can immediately release sensational videos within hours of those incidents, it makes the department’s refusal to provide documents concerning the frequent allegations of correctional officer misconduct even more problematic.”
-ACLU
Wednesday’s lawsuit is an effort to force the city to follow the law and release the CJC records.
“It is recognized around the world that governments using chemical weapons against their own people is a deplorable act resorted to by totalitarian regimes, so reports of chemical agents deployed in the Justice Center—where most folks are pre-trial detainees not convicted of a crime—are troubling to anyone concerned about human rights,” Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Missouri, said in a statement. “The City’s refusal to comply with Missouri’s public records law raises serious questions about just what officials are trying to hide.”
This latest suit is just a continuation of a year full of struggles the City Justice Center has experienced. At least six detainee uprisings have occurred there since the end of December — all blamed onfaulty locks in the facility. The most recent uprisings were two in July that resulted in thetransfer of about 140 detainees to the now-closed Workhouse.
Thefirst two protests occurred just before and on New Year’s Day. Each time, the inmates refused to return to their cells in protest of inadequate protections against COVID-19 for those being held there.
Then, in early February,inmates took over the north side of the fourth floor of the jail, breaking the windows and throwing debris down onto the sidewalk and street. The fourth protest happened on Easter Sunday and mirrored February’s uprising but on the third floor.
Jones announced in August that an associate warden in Arkansas will take over as St. Louis’new corrections commissioner. Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah is scheduled to begin work Sept. 13.
