Police use pepper spray to disperse protest outside St. Louis jail

ST. LOUIS • With scorching temperatures expected to reach well over 100 degrees this weekend, protesters are again demanding closure of the city’s medium-security jail, which doesn’t have air conditioning.

Police used pepper spray to disperse a crowd who had protested for about two hours outside the workhouse Friday night. The spraying came just minutes after officers ordered the crowd to leave.

Those hit with the pepper spray had been among a diverse group of about 150 demonstrators, some of whom held signs with slogans that included “We treat animals better.” State Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, joined them.

At one point, several protesters climbed under an exterior chain-link fence around the workhouse and a few scaled a second fence closer to the building, but they stopped short of going over its razor wire top.

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