PROTECTION? WHAT PROTECTION?

I know it's annoying to have people interrupt the understandably vital conversations about foreign war to talk about the domestic crisises that so urgently need our attention. The critical problems in our country have been abandoned in the aftermath of the paralyzing incident in NY. Yes, we have been in shock, hashing and rehashing September 11th, growing panicked and more fearful as anthrax and smallpox and more bombs becomes a bigger issue. Shock and paralysis that allows the politicians to write laws that enable them to get into our homes, our communications, and our persons, where they have no business, because we think they might make us safe.

Safer than we were on September 10th, when some of you thought we were safe.

I don't know if there has to be war or not, but then I always prefer more creative solutions. But I do know that here it is, two months later and the entire country has been almost at a standstill in domestic issues that were so pressing until September 11th, but that are, without our attention, deteriorating as fast as ice cream on a hot day (as any good terrorist would hope it would, I suppose).

If the terrorism, disease, and war could have been timed, it could not have suited our politicians better than to have it happen now, because there were just too many people asking too many embarrassing questions about internal policies.  Now no one is asking those questions anymore.  It has become almost UN-AMERIKAN to talk about anything else but war and terrorism.  My goodness, what could be more AMERICAN than tending to the healing it will take to maintain and strengthen a free society?

Each of you know there's a crisis in this country that ought to make you want to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Pick one... Taxes are impossible, corruption is rampant, our election process is questionable, police are brutal, racial tension abides, hunger and homelessness and unemployment abound, and of course, there's the never-ending, never victorious, internal Drug War.

Even if we survive terrorist attacks, global war, and George Bush's presidency, we're still going to look around and see the streets of our nation crowded with people with no homes, the children living in squalor and going to sleep with hunger pains in their little bellies, schools deteriorating in quality education, people dying for lack of reasonable access to medical care, corruption from the cops to the courtrooms into the booming American Prison Industrial Complex.  And ultimately we will pay the price for our inattention.  Freedom will have been given up for a false security - again.  The crisis will pass and we will try to turn around and we'll find the government at our shoulder, scrutinizing everyone and everything we care about.

I hope you will pardon me and understand why I have to gently but firmly interrupt. In an effort to strengthen us from within while those who want to wage war without do so, I must try to recall your attention to the problems at home.

Only you know what your job is, but my job for now is to keep an eye on the prisons.  Great inhumanities are occurring to two million plus people who are being warehoused in America's "Gulags" and another 5 or 6 million who are more of a burden than they need to be on probation and parole because they can't find jobs or need medical care they can't afford. A powerful and ugly force is damaging the bodies, minds and spirits of people we may live next door to someday, or may even be one of...

Does that make you feel safer? Not me! Because I'm not just talking about the prisoners.  I'm talking about the guards and staff who learn to ignore the moral code of the nation, the laws of the state, and the directives of their own employers.  Even those who only cover up the damage are damaged too. And the families...  And the people who pay for it all...  sigh, it's just too much.

The story I have to share today is appalling.  I do not have the son's permission to tell it, but I do have his mother's pleas.  

MAMAS, DON'T LET YOUR SONS GROW UP TO BE A STATE WITNESS........

I have here a case of a voluntary state's witness, a kid with a bullet in his neck, who is either sick or starving to death in Hendry CI in Florida.

We will refer to this young prisoner as 'Lindy's Son'.  He just turned 19 last month. No one in Lindy's family has ever been imprisoned before, including her son, but he now lives in the Florida prison system. You want to know why? Because he and his mother believed the cops when they told him they would protect him in exchange for his involvement.

Lindy's seventeen year old son, his girlfriend and his two friends were not gang members, but  on December 3, 1999, while they were out together, they were victims of and witnesses to a driveby shooting by neighborhood gang members.  The young people knew the names of the shooters in the car. Lindy's son asked his mother what he should do.  Lindy reassured him that going to the authorities was the right thing, although she's since had reason to regret that decision many times. Lindy's son knew there were 8  gang members who were involved in this shooting. He and his friends knew their names, even where they lived. The police agreed that Lindy's son had the names right, and agreed that he and his friends named the ones that undoubtably did this crime, but claimed there was no proof without Lindy's son and his friends' testimonies.  And of course, the authorities promised them protection...

But there was no protection for Lindy's son when the many bullets came whizzing through his mom's front window while he was watching TV, one lodging in his neck. Nor was protection available when Lindy's son's girlfriend was the vicitm of a driveby shooting, and doggone it, where was the protection promised when gang members stabbed Lindy son's two friends in an employer's parking lot just before they were to give testimony? Lindy's son was scheduled to meet them at Publix after they got off work, but he was fortunately late, or he would have been stabbed too. His friends were stabbed because they were scheduled to testify and the cops failed in their promise to protect.

Lindy's son's two friends did NOT die. One was left blind with the mind of a five year old and the other suffered lung & liver damage. Of the eight criminals Lindy's son and his friends named -----NONE were arrested. So it's almost understandable that,  as his friends lay in the hospital wounded so severly, he entered another plane of existence.  He took a gun and went to do what the cops and courts had neglected to do:  He went to exact justice.

Murder is illegal, even for a frightened, distraught, angry kid with good cause, so thank heaven Lindy's son missed when he pulled the trigger. He shot once at the stabbing leader and missed. He was charged with aggravated battery  He now lives in a Florida Youthful Offender prison, where once again he is left unprotected.

He and his mother quietly accepted the sentence.  All his mother asked was that her son be put somewhere safe to do his time.  The law couldn't even provide that!

August 11, 2000:  Lindy's son was sentenced to 3 years as a Y.O. (youthful offender) and sent to Pinellas County Maximum Jail with adults.

October 3, 2000: Lindy's son was shipped to Orlando into the hands of the DOC.  On November 29, he was shipped to Lancaster and literally kicked off the bus when he arrived. (Shoving them off the bus like this is standard operating proceedure at the youth facilities in Florida

May 8, 2000, he was shipped back to Pinellas County Jail to testify about one of the shooting incidents

By June, shocked at the unencumbered brutality her son was being subjected to in the Florida system, afraid for her son's life, Lindy began to communicate with representatives and Michelle Jordan (Gang Unit) begging for a transfer for her son, but it had to be somewhere safe. "Please don't send him to Hendry", his mother begged and Ms Jordan assured her he would not be sent there.   "I just don't want him taken from the frying pan and thrown into the fire," Lindy explained.

July 25, 2001:  Lindy's son was scheduled to take the GED at the jail on August 6 and 7th, but they moved him, shipped him to North Florida Reception Center (aka Butler) and five days later, he was sent to the Central Fl Reception Center in Orlando.  The next day he was moved again - to the South Florida Reception Center in Miami and two days later, on August 3, 2001, despite assurances from the DOC, he ended up in Hendry CI, out of the frying pan and right in the fire, where he's been held ever since.

...And Lindy has been raging ever since.  Hendry is filled with gangs, as are most of the youthful offenders facilities in Florida.  It wasn't long before word came down that not only was Lindy's son   on the gang's hit list, but number one on Lancaster CI's Sergeant Whippy's hit list too. This was frightening, and on September 4, 2001 he requested protective custody.

He went before the ICT on September 6, 2001, and they denied his request for protection because he only knew nicknames.  He did not know the full names they wanted, and was not given a chance to identify photographs of those who threatened him.  Hendry put him in protective custody, awaiting the decision.

So, he lived in the hole for two months, September and October, while his mother continued in her efforts to get him moved to a decent prison, even if it was an adult facility, like Sumpter or Moore Haven.  In that 60 days, he was taken outside once.

On October 5th, a guard, Officer Mosher, ransacked Lindy's son's cell, destroying letters from home and legal papers.  When he asked him why, Mosher replied, "Because I can."  When Lindy's son tried to pick up his stuff, Mosher unexpectedly and without warning, wrapped a cloth around Lindy's son's neck from behind and tried to strangle him, causing renewed and lasting pain in his neck where the bullet is still lodged.  Nothing was done about the assault.

While he was supposedly under protective management, the GED tested on October 16, 17, and 18, but Lindy's son was once again denied the opportunity, this time because he was in close management (the hole), never mind that he was there for protection and not for misbehaving.

Then on Oct  18th, immediately after the exams were over, he was notified that Tallahassee had denied his request for protection.

As is routine with the DOC, he had been labeled a 'lying inmate' and Lindy's son wrote these words in response:

.

"If you review my records, you will also find that the ONLY reason I am in prison today is because of my truthfulness. In other words, NO evidence, except my mouth [was needed]. They had no trouble believing me [then]."

He was told that he was being sent back into the dangers of open population and out of fear, he refused to go.  He received a DR.

OCTOBER 30, 2001, Lindy's son had his hearing on the DR.  He was found guilty of disobeying an order, and was told to go back to open population.

Lindy wrote, "I HAVE NOT HEARD FROM HIM SINCE HIS RETURN TO OPEN POPULATION

Dr Cobb, who is employed at Charlotte CI, but currently does duty to Hendry every couple of weeks, is a private practice doctor from a private company that just took over medical care at two youth facilities.  He saw Lindy's son on Oct. 30th, while he was still in confinement and something is terribly wrong.

When Lindy's son entered close management, which means the same harsh conditions of the hole, his nearly six foot frame weighed 162 pounds. He's now back in open population, the DOC website now says he weighs 143 pounds, and as Dr. Cobb put it, "he is looking pale, fragile, and thin."

Lindy's son is not in the peak of health anyway, with a bullet in his neck, and Dr. Cobb said "for some reason, his pulse is soaring", just as it did while he was hospitalized for the gunshot. The doctor says he needs to do some tests, particularly an HIV test and a test for juvenile diabetes.  The problem is, the good doctor in not scheduled to return to Hendry for another two weeks.

Not knowing why Lindy's son has lost so much weight, nor the imminent dangers he may face from the gangs, two weeks could be too long.

So at this moment, we only know Lindy's son looks bad, is in danger from members of the gang he witnessed against, and needs to be in a better place.

So, this is the care we provide for the youthful offenders [and state witnesses] in Florida.