I am the author of this story. These prisoners are living under criminal death threats. If anyone is able to send my story out to the Florida media, please do so. I want as much publicity as possible.
I have already sent this to the Chief Inspector General in the Governor's office. to the Secretary of FDOC, to the FDLE, to the FDOC Inspector General, to the Warden at UCI and to the regional Director as well as to two attorneys at the Florida Justice Institute.
I would hope to stir up as much hell about this as possible.
John Albert
jalbert13@juno.com
At the Transitional Care Unit and Crisis Stabilization Unit at
Union Correctional Institution, there are
many acts of brutality and abuse visited upon the prisoners. Union (TCU and
CSU) is supposed
to be a mental health treatment unit but all of the mental health workers and
psychiatrists are either intimidated by the security guards or cooperating in
the abuse.
There are incidents of physical torture, murder, excessive use of chemical agents on the prisoners, withholding of food, guards throwing food trays on the floor, and withholding and destroying mail and personal property.
Besides the physical and psychological abuse, there is a deliberate indifference to the health needs of the prisoners. This kind of treatment is especially hard on the mentally ill prisoners.
Those nurses and doctors who raise objections to the mistreatment or write honest reports about the abuse are transferred to other locations. In the last six months, six doctors have been transferred out because they would not cooperate with the cover-up of abusive treatment. They are Dr. Infante, Dr. Roberts, Dr. Fernandez, Mr. Moore, Ms. Lola and Dr. Spielman.
Lucius Hines
In May of 2002, prisoner Lucius Hines died from alleged suicide while on CSU. [It is odd that he does not show up in a search of the 'released' and 'diseased' inmate population. Surely no one is trying to pretend that Lucius Hines never existed. kl]
Robert Bruce
DOC # 760200
Then in October, 2002,
Robert Bruce died of alleged suicide while on
CSU/SOS, a suicide observation status. He had cut himself in an alleged
suicide attempt earlier that morning and was moved to CSU, where he died
later in the day.
CSU/SOS is designed to make suicide impossible and to treat the mental health of suicidal prisoners. It is standard policy for prisoners on SOS to have all their clothing removed and replaced with a special blanket to wrap themselves in, which cannot be used to commit suicide. This was not done for Robert Bruce and he was found strangled with his own clothing.
Sgt. Lee was responsible for not removing Robert's clothing according to procedure. Nurse Haspel was also involved and was suspended from duty because of that death. But then Nurse Haspel was returned to duty on TCU in January.
Troy Mills
DOC # S00269
Nurse Haspel immediately focused upon prisoner, Troy
Mills, and began harassing him. She has filed several false
disciplinary reports against him and exhorted other nurses and officers to do
the same. She calls him names, uses racial epithets at him and urges him to
kill himself to save everyone the trouble. He has been refused any mental
health treatment because he is a marked man.
On February 8, 2003, Nurse Haspel ordered three officers to go into Troy
Mills' cell and "kill his ass." This was a completely unprovoked
attack. The officers were Officer J. Smith, Sgt.
Fontonoy and another Officer whose name I do not yet know. They did
beat him but he survived.
Everyone on the dorm is aware that Troy Mills is a marked man and will soon be killed. Other prisoners have been warned by the guards to stay away from him.
Eric Green
DOC # 192172
On January 16, 2003, one of the inmate runners placed a drink on the food
tray slot of
Eric Green's TCU cell for him. Before
Green could get to the food tray flap to retrieve the drink,
Officer M. Davis took the drink and moved it down
to the floor. Green reached his arm through the flap to grab the drink but he
could not reach it.
As Officer J. Smith passed by, Green asked
him to hand him the drink. Instead, Smith told Green to remove his arm from
the flap or he would break it. Green failed to remove his arm promptly enough,
so Officer J. Smith grabbed Green's arm, pulled it further through the
opening, twisted it, yanked on it and then threw all his body weight against
it in an effort to break it. Officer Smith weighs about 230 pounds. Green's
arm was bruised, sprained and received a 7 centimeter cut from the edge of the
food slot but did not break.
Officer Smith was laughing at Green throughout this incident and only stopped
trying to break his arm when the neighboring prisoners began banging on their
cell doors and yelling for Nurse Woods to stop
this attack. Nurse Woods and Officer M. Davis had
witnessed the entire incident without comment.
James Lockhart
DOC # S00269
Then
Officer J. Smith went to James Lockhart's cell,
next door to Green, and told Lockhart to shut up or he would break his hand.
Lockhart asked him to get the nurse to come down there. Officer Smith then
closed the flap on Lockhart's hand, pinning it against the opening and kneeing
the flap and throwing his weight against it.
Sgt. Lane, the Housing Supervisor, arrived and
ordered Officers Smith and Davis to leave. Before leaving, Smith gave
Lockhart's hand a final punch. The bones in his hand were broken in several
places requiring surgery. Sgt. Lane then tried to persuade Green and Lockhart
to let the matter drop and keep quiet about it. But they insisted upon getting
medical treatment for their injuries. So, Sgt. Lane left, saying that he would
report that they had both assaulted Officer Smith.
Both Green and Lockhart were taken to have their injuries examined by Dr. Ali. While they were gone, all of their clothing, linens and personal property was removed from their cells at the instructions of Captain Hodgson.
Officer M. Davis, who had only been on the job for two months,
wrote an accurate report on the incident, but when Captain Hodgson read it,
Hodgson told Davis that if Davis wanted to keep his job, he would re-write his
report to agree with Officer Smith's version. So Davis re-wrote it to conform
to Smith's report.
Two days later, Sgt. Lane entered Lockhart's cell, pulled out a knife and
forced Lockhart to swallow some pills. They were five Xanax capsules, which is
not a medication prescribed for use at this facility. When Sgt. Lane left,
Lockhart called nurse Woods and told her that Sgt. Lane had just tried to kill
him.
In the days following those attacks, both prisoners have been repeatedly threatened by Officer J. Smith, Sgt. Lane, and Captain Hodgson. James Lockhart, Troy Mills' and Eric Green's lives are in constant jeopardy.
This writer has contacted 24 state senators, FDOC former Secretary, Michael Moore, and his successor, James Crosby, the Regional Director turned Sec. of DOC, Mills' Classification Officer, and Rod Hall, the director of mental health services, in an effort to save this man's life. It is all to no avail. No one will do anything to save a prisoner's life.
Rod Hall insists that there is an ongoing investigation, but he does not know what agency is performing the investigation. The main purpose of internal investigations is to cover-up the criminal behavior of the FDOC.
The guards, nurses and doctors all lie to the investigator and their word is taken over all the evidence and testimony of prisoners. The state senators rely upon this kind of corrupt investigation to reassure themselves that everything is being done properly.
There is no agency in the state of Florida that can be relied upon for an honest, independent investigation of a death threat inside the FDOC prison system.
I urge you to take the necessary steps to save these prisoners from
further abuse or death and to end this criminal behavior by the staff at UCI.
John Albert
jalbert13@juno.com