Menard Correctional Center put on lockdown, weapons found - KFVS12 News & Weather Cape Girardeau, Carbondale, Poplar Bluff

Menard Correctional Center put on lockdown, weapons found

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Eleven shanks and seven grams of illegal drugs were reportedly found in the cells. Eleven shanks and seven grams of illegal drugs were reportedly found in the cells.

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CHESTER, IL (KFVS) -

Menard Correctional Center has been put on lockdown after a "shakedown" on Friday. There were also a couple of incidents Friday at the Vienna Correctional Center.

 

Monday, the Menard Correctional Center in Chester was still on lockdown.

This, after prison guards found weapons inside prison cells last week.

At least seven prisons across the state searched prison guards and other employees for contraband as they left work last week.

Menard is getting high-risk, violent prisoners from the Tamms Correctional Center which is set to close next month.

Tactical units entered the Menard Correctional Center in Chester on Friday for a shakedown of certain cells in the prison, according to Toby Oliver, an AFSME Local 2758 Union Representative.

Oliver says 11 shanks and seven grams of illegal drugs were seized from the cells.

He says inmates in those cells were put in isolation.  They were being transferred to Pontiac Correctional Center.

No staff was hurt in the shakedown. 

According to the Illinois Department of Corrections website, visitors are not allowed during the lockdown.

Oliver says prison guards also broke up two gang fights Friday at the Vienna Correctional Center.

There's no word if any inmates were injured,  but no guards got hurt.

Oliver says these incidents are the result of Governor Pat Quinn's decision to close the supermax prison in Tamms.

He says the recent violence reminds him of the system in the 90s.

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