Platte County prosecutors have been busy filing charges over the past weeks against inmates at the Platte County Detention Center who were responsible for a riot in the jail in Platte City late last year.
Bruce Brandenburg, Zachary Mace, Christopher Mejia, Stephen Smith and Joshua Vasquez have been charged with felonies for damage to the county jail and misdemeanors for rioting.
Charges have also been filed against a handful of other inmates for refusal to disperse during the riot, including Richard Dedrick, Mason Harvey and Harvey Prewett.
Officials at the prosecutors office say additional charges are pending.
According to court documents, the riot started in the late afternoon of Monday, Dec. 20, 2021 and involved 25 inmates assigned to Housing Tank G in the detention center.
The incident took several hours to resolve, only after the Platte County and Clay County SWAT teams entered with rifles firing “pepper balls,” which are similar to paint balls containing an irritating powder.
Many inmates were passive participants who sat in chairs and refused to lock down when commanded to return to their cells.
Others, such as those initially charged, were active participants who barricaded doors, flooded the shower room by breaking the sprinkler head, threw wet toilet paper at observation windows and cameras to obscure the view into the housing unit and wet down floors to make entrance into the unit slippery for law enforcement.
In individual charges, some inmates are accused of throwing chairs, others with breaking sprinkler heads and other violations of jail protocol and failure to respond to commands.
Inmates in Housing Tank E decided to show solidarity with the active rioters by refusing orders to lock down. All but six inmates in that tank locked down as ordered, but the protestors sat down on the stairs, covering themselves with blankets. They were eventually secured in their cells by jail staff.
Among those first charged with instigating the riot, Brandenburg was originally jailed in September on drug charges; Mace was jailed in November for burglary; Mejia in February 2021 for robbery and armed criminal action; Vasquez was sentenced to the Department of Corrections in November on drug charges and for resisting arrest.