Minnesota jail reaches resolution with around 100 prisoners who refused to return to cells
A US jail has “resolved without incident” a situation involving about 100 prisoners who had refused to return to their cells.
Members of a crisis negotiation team were sent into the Stillwater prison in the state of Minnesota on Sunday after it was put on emergency lockdown.
A spokesperson for the state’s Department of Corrections said the special operations response team had been deployed “out of an abundance of caution” but that the situation was now “calm, peaceful and stable”.
File pic: Minnesota Department of Corrections
They said inmates in one unit had “indicated dissatisfaction” because the facility had to limit prisoners’ time out of their cells due to under-staffing.
The executive director of the union representing Stillwater’s correctional officers, Bart Andersen, said the incident was “endemic and highlights the truth behind the operations of the MN Department of Corrections with chronic understaffing”.
Advocates outside of the Stillwater prison, some of whom have family members inside, said inmates were fed up with the excessive heat, lack of air conditioning and limited access to showers and ice during on and off lockdowns over the past two months.
One former inmate said the prisoners were involved in an act of “self-preservation” amid dangerously high temperatures in the region.
The area where the jail is located was under a Sunday afternoon heat warning for temperatures reaching 37.7C (100F).
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Just over 1,200 inmates are at the facility just southeast of Stillwater, according to department records.
The facility, which was built in 1914, is the state’s largest close-security institution for men.
There is a total of seven living units at the facility, according to the Department of Corrections’s website.
The website notes the facility’s role is to provide men with “educational, vocational and industrial programming opportunities during incarceration”.
Thousands of people gathered in various cities across the US as protests against Donald Trump and Elon Musk took place in all 50 states on Saturday.
Around 1,200 demonstrations were planned in locations including Washington DC, New York City and West Palm Beach, Florida – just miles away from where the US president has this weekend played golf.
The “Hands Off!” protests were against the Trump administration’s handling of government downsizing, human rights and the economy, among other issues.
In Washington DC, protesters streamed on the grass in front of the Washington Monument, where one person carried a banner which read: “Make democracy great again.”
Thousands gathered in Washington DC to rally against various Trump policies. Pic: AP
Pic: AP
Another protester took aim at Mr Trump‘s handling of Russia and Ukraine, with a placard that read: “Stop Putin’s puppets from destroying America.”
Tesla boss Mr Musk also featured on many signs due to his role in controversial government cuts as head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Demonstrators in NYC. Pic: AP
People marching in Atlanta, Georgia. Pic: Reuters
A rally in Vermont. Pic: The Brattleboro Reformer via AP
Terry Klein, a retired biomedical scientist, said she drove to the rally to protest Mr Trump’s policies on “everything from immigration to the DOGE stuff to the tariffs this week, to education”.
“I mean, our whole country is under attack, all of our institutions, all the things that make America what it is,” she added.
A drone view of the protest at the Utah State Capitol building. Pic Reuters
A protester sports a Handmaid’s Tale costume. Pic: Reuters
Pic: Reuters
Some at the various protests carried Ukrainian flags, while others sported rainbow attire and waved rainbow flags in support of the LGBTQ+ community.
Other protesters wore Palestinian keffiyeh scarves and carried “Free Palestine” signs.
Thousands marched in New York City’s midtown Manhattan and in Boston, Massachusetts, while hundreds gathered in the sunshine outside the Utah State Capitol building in Salt Lake City, and in the rain outside the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio.
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Mr Trump – who shook financial markets with his tariffs announcement this week – spent the day in Florida, playing a round of golf before returning to his Mar-a-Lago residence.
People protest in Manhattan. Pic: Reuters
Activists in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Pic: AP
Some four miles from Mar-a-Lago, more than 400 people gathered – and drivers honked their horns in support of protesters who held up signs including one which read: “Markets tank, Trump golfs.”
The White House has said Mr Trump plans to go golfing again on Sunday.
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