The Spokane County Sheriff's Office is still adding up the costs of a flood this weekend caused by inmates in the Spokane County Jail.

The flood started Friday night when inmates in the jail annex started fiddling with their toilets and realized one of them wouldn't stop running.

?One inmate was playing with the toilet flusher, kept pushing in and out until a valve stuck and I believe other inmates flushed jumpsuits, blankets and towels down,? Sergeant RD Smith with the Spokane County Jail said.

Even though any one of the inmates in these large communal cells could have pushed a call button to warn corrections deputies about the overflowing toilet the group silently stood by as the water rose and eventually flooded the offices below.

?They don't like being locked down; it's their way of protesting. It's really quite honestly just their way of messing with us,? SGT. Smith said.

However its taxpayers who end up footing the bill for the flood and the ring leaders of this incident will likely face new criminal charges. In the meantime the flush-happy instigators have been hauled off to the disciplinary unit where ironically they will enjoy even fewer freedoms. Among the fewer freedoms they?ll have, water can be shut off to individual cells to avoid a repeat performance.

?Inmates are in jail , they think they can harass the staff or the department as a whole by disrupting and there's a price to be paid for that,? SGT. Smith said.