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By IAN ROBERTSON, TORONTO SUN
February 26, 2001
About 60 prisoners at the provincial jail in south Etobicoke went on a rampage early today, setting fire to two cells, smashing a picnic table, and were "rioting in the yard," police said.
One Mimico Detention Centre guard and two inmates were treated by paramedics shortly before Toronto Police Emergency Task Force officers entered the jail to talk with inmates.
The extent of their injuries were unknown.
At 1:15 a.m., a supervisor told officers guarding the perimeter fence of the sprawling Judson and Horner Aves. complex west of Islington Ave. that the riot was over.
Etobicoke firefighters were dispatched to the jail around midnight, after materials in two cells were torched. Police were ordered into the yard, where about 30 young offenders had been taken as smoke filled a building on the north side.
"A few of them began rioting in the yard," an officer said.
"Every available officer was sent there," he said. Cops who went into the yard behind the main building were ordered to remove their firearms, to prevent them being stolen.
A police supervisor at the scene said the rioters appeared to all be young offenders. Officers guarding the perimeter fence were warned that a broken picnic table could have provided prisoners with "weapons."
Around 12:20 a.m., as 21 Division officers surrounded the fenced-in brick buildings, several prisoners began "trying to scale the wall at J unit, on the north side," a cop said.
"If they come over the wall, we'll be ready for them," he said.
One prisoner got over the fence but was met by four Police Dog Services officers and their dogs.
After the all-clear was announced, ETF officers went through the damaged building, and moved the prisoners to other quarters.
NOTE: This article says absolutely nothing about why there was a riot. Conditions in jails and prisons are deplorable and we will likely see more rebellion though we can't be sure who rioted on whom unless we were there.-ed
Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law.
"We are told that when Jehovah created the world
he saw that it was good.
What would he say now?"--George Bernard Shaw
This page created February 28, 2001
