Prison returning to normal order

By MaryHelen Swanson
As of Tuesday, Dec. 9, about 130 offenders at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Rush City remained in lockdown, according to Warden Bob Feneis.

The facility has been steadily returning to normal operations after an incident that occurred on the evening of Nov. 29.

At that time about 30 inmates barricaded themselves in a housing unit refusing to go back into their cells. The incident was settled in about three hours.

Warden Feneis expects that the facility will be fully back to normal operations by Thursday.

The investigation into the cause of the disturbance continues, Feneis said.

There will be some internal discipline, he said, and they will be referring some cases to Chisago County for criminal prosecution.

No weapons were found in the shakedown of cells.
Another incident, involving some INS detainees, occurred before the Nov. 29 incident.

Because the major issue appears to have been the unknown status of the inmatesís cases, Feneis said it has been agreed that INS officials would meet regularly once a week with the detainees to update them on their cases.

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