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2 inmates charged with attacking St. Louis CO during riot

The officer was treated and released from a hospital after sustaining injuries during the February riot

St. Louis Justice Center riot February 6, 2021

Inmates set bedding materials on fire, dropping them from broken windows at the St. Louis Justice Center on Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021.

Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS

By Joel Currier
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS — Two inmates at the St. Louis City Justice Center have been charged with attacking a corrections officer Feb. 6 during the first of two recent riots at the jail.

Devion M. Chester, 29, of the 4100 block of Enright Avenue, was charged Monday with a felony count of assault of a special victim.

Lorenzo White, 36, of the 12400 block of Pizarro Drive in the Spanish Lake area of St. Louis County, was charged with one count of misdemeanor assault of a special victim.

The charge against Chester claims he refused a corrections officer’s instructions, and after the officer deployed pepper spray, Chester “rushed” the officer, punching him several times and causing injury to the officer’s face.

The charge against White says he pushed the same corrections officer to the floor as the officer was “engaged in a fight with another inmate.”

The unidentified corrections officer was treated and released from a hospital after the attack, officials said.

Officials said inmates “jimmied” locks before more than 100 of them broke out of their cells, smashed windows and set fires on the fourth floor of the downtown jail. Faulty locks were cited in a second riot at the jail earlier this month.

At the time of the incident, Chester had two pending counts of murder, assault and armed criminal action that were later dismissed. He had been accused of killing two people July 4, 2016, outside Moma Minnie’s convenience store at Page Boulevard and Pendleton Avenue.

Court records say White had been held on charges including unlawful possession of a gun, fleeing police and leaving the scene of a crash.

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