Star Tribune
Stillwater prison protest ‘resolved’ after inmates refused to return to cells
The Stillwater state prison will remain on lockdown until at least Tuesday after about 100 inmates refused to return to their cells for about seven hours on Sunday.
Officials from the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) said the situation has been “resolved without incident” and no one was hurt. The Bayport facility was placed on lockdown at around 8 a.m. Sunday as prisoners protested problems stemming from staff shortages.
DOC spokesman Andy Skoogman said the situation was “calm, peaceful and stable” throughout the day. The facility remained on lockdown status after nearly all prisoners returned to their cells around 3 p.m. Sunday.
Reports were mixed regarding what triggered the protest within the prison.
Skoogman said some of the incarcerated men in the unit were dissatisfied because cell release schedules were modified over the Labor Day holiday weekend, meaning prisoners had less time than usual for showers, phone use and recreation.
The DOC said schedules had to be modified due to “staffing challenges.”
On Sunday morning, about 225 men from one housing unit were released from their cells to shower, call their relatives and socialize, but about 100 refused to return to their cells around 8 a.m. Skoogman said DOC staff were quickly removed from the common areas of the housing unit while two correctional officers stayed in the unit’s secure control area. The two officers in the secure control area were in constant communication with facility command personnel during the incident, he said.
The protesting prisoners were calm, talking with each other and playing cards, Minnesota Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell said during a news conference Sunday afternoon. “There was never any type of violence throughout the incident,” Schnell said.
Prison Chaplain Scott Westphal reiterated that no one was hurt and that the matter with inmates and correctional officers was handled in a “very peaceable, very dignified [way]. I’m very grateful.” He declined further comment.
A tactical team was standing by, Schnell said. DOC crisis negotiators talked with the inmates, and all but two returned to their cells, Schnell said. The two who refused to return were taken to restrictive housing and will face discipline.
Schnell blamed inmates communicating with their families and activists for making too much of the situation.
“This is not the first time we’ve had people refuse to go back to their cells,” he said.
A small group of family and friends of inmates gathered outside the facility on Sunday, including Marvina Haynes, whose brother Marvin Haynes is incarcerated there for a 2005 murder conviction. Her brother told her that inmates have gone two days without showers and, when let out of their cells this morning, they refused to go back in. Phones were shut down just after 8 a.m., family members said, just as the lockdown began.
“The inmates don’t want to hurt or harm anyone, they just want clean water, showers and ice,” Haynes said.
She and other family members noted the facility is not air-conditioned, and said their family members have had limited access to water, showers and ice this weekend. Temperatures outside the prison hovered above 90 degrees.
Heat has always been a problem for the prison, Schnell said.
Cathy Stroud-Caldwell, whose son Lincoln is in prison for a 2008 murder conviction, said she’s been told water in the cells is rusty and prisoners have been straining it using their socks. “These are human beings,” she said.
Schnell said the water in the prison is safe to drink and was recently tested.
The head of the union representing staff and corrections officers at Stillwater, AFSCME Council 5, said in a statement that Sunday’s incident shows the consequences of understaffing.
The lack of staffing means prisoners’ movements are restricted, “leading to upset offenders” who have little or no access to programming and recreational time, said AFSCME Council 5 interim executive director Bart Andersen, in a statement.
The union claims correctional facilities “cannot have transformational offender programming without sufficient facility security.”
“Without more staffing in our correctional facilities … we will continue down this unacceptable road of staff assaults, offenders controlling sections of our prisons and more,” Andersen said.
Schnell said there are about 50 staff vacancies at Stillwater, and more than 300 across the entire DOC, or about 14% of all positions.
Built in 1914, the Stillwater state prison is the state’s largest close-security institution for men, according to its website. The prison houses about 1,500 inmates.
The Minnesota State Patrol has identified the motorist whose SUV hit a school bus taking kids to their Iron Range school.
The patrol said 19-year-old Svea Lynn Snickers, of Alborn, Minn., ran a stop sign at the intersection and hit the bus as it headed north on Hwy. 5. She was last reported to be in critical condition.
The collision occurred just east of Hibbing about 7:50 a.m. Thursday at the intersection of Hwy. 5 and Town Line Road, according to the State Patrol.
All 21 children heading to Cherry School suffered minor injuries when the bus flipped over about 7 miles southwest of its destination, the patrol said. The school serves about 600 students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, and students of all ages were on the bus, said St. Louis County Schools Superintendent Reggie Engebritson.
A witness told Hibbing police that students were able to crawl out of the bus on their own.
Snickers suffered critical injuries, was extricated from the wreckage by emergency responders and taken by air ambulance to Essentia Hospital in nearby Virginia, according to police.
The bus driver, 52-year-old Shawn Allen Lindula, of Iron, Minn., was expected to survive his injuries.
Star Tribune staff writer Jana Hollingsworth contributed to this report.
St. Louis Park will soon require landlords to give renters more notice before they file for evictions over late payments.
The city currently requires landlords to give tenants notice seven days before they file for eviction. Starting in November, landlords will have to give 30 days notice and use a form prepared by the city.
“This is a tough ordinance,” Council Member Lynette Dumalag, the only person to vote against the change, said during a meeting this week. “At least for me, personally, I felt that it pit those that care about affordable housing against one another.”
In public hearings and other forums, city leaders heard from renters who said the current requirements didn’t give them enough time to scrape together payments if they face a sudden hardship, such as losing a job. They also heard from at least one landlord who said he might have to increase deposits because he already struggles to make ends meet when renters fall behind on payments.
The change passed 4 to 1. Council Member Tim Brausen and Mayor Nadia Mohamed were absent.
PARK RAPIDS, Minn. — Ryan Leckner has resigned as Mayor of Park Rapids and the city council has officially declared a vacancy.
City Administrator Angel Weasner said councilmembers will hold a workshop on Sept. 24 to determine how to proceed. They can fill the vacancy by appointment or hold a special election, which Leckner said seems unlikely given that the November general election is just around the corner.
Until then, Leckner said “we’re thinking that we’ll just be able to get by with just one less council member.”
He added that Councilmember Liz Stone would likely serve as acting mayor until voters hit the polls.
Former Park Rapids Mayor Pat Mikesh is running uncontested for Leckner’s now-vacant seat.
In 2018, Mikesh stepped down a month before the election and Leckner successfully ran as a write-in candidate.
Leckner first joined the council in 2015 and is ending his third, two-year term as mayor early because his family built a home outside city limits. Construction of the home in Henrietta Township, and the sale of his existing home in Park Rapids, all happened faster than expected, he said.
“My term was up in November anyways,” he said, “so I was kind of planning on just not running.”
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