By Brendan Crowley GateHouse Missouri
Columbia Daily Tribune, Mo.
BOONVILLE, Mo. — Prisoners in the Boonville Correctional Center broke into staff offices and damaged security cameras and other office equipment during a 2-hour power outage Saturday night.
Two corrections officers reported that someone threw an unknown liquid on them, and another officer was pushed into a table while they were trying to pull an offender out of a staff office, said Karen Pojmann, Missouri Department of Corrections spokeswoman.
Storms that rolled through Mid-Missouri on Saturday night left many without power in the Boonville area, including the Boonville Correctional Center. The prison’s backup generator failed, leaving prisoners and staff in the dark from 10:55 p.m. to 12:43 a.m., Pojmann said.
The prison is a minimum security facility with a capacity for 1,346 inmates. Housing units are open bay style. Prisoners aren’t locked inside cells and can move around freely within their housing units, Pojmann said. Some prisoners broke staff office windows to get items staff had confiscated from the canteen and damage office equipment, she said.
Nobody required outside medical attention after the incident, she said.
The department is investigating the incident, but it was dark and the security cameras weren’t operating, making it difficult to identify which prisoners were involved, Pojmann said.
No offenders got outside of their housing units, she said.
©2019 Columbia Daily Tribune, Mo.