Georgia Dept of Corrections Withholding Medical Care to Brutalized Inmates, Retaliatory Campaign Continues

Mon, 03/21/2011 - 19:53 — Bruce A. Dixon Black Agenda Report

From the correspondence of their attorney and the testimony of their
families and friends, details are emerging which indicate a still
ongoing campaign of brutal beatings and withheld medical care in the
wake of the December 2010 inmate strike in Georgia prisons. Does the
fact that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has take charge of
inquiries into the beatings confirm the suspicion of some that the
Department of Corrections is not to be trusted with investigating
itself? And is it time, as Rev. Kenneth Glasgow of The Ordinary Peoples
Society suggests, for a thoroughgoing yearlong series of public hearings
into all aspects of Georgia's troubled prisons?

Is Georgia's Dept of Corrections Withholding Medical Care To Beaten
Prisoners as Part of Retaliatory Campaign After Dec 2010 Inmate Strike?

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

“...correctional
officers singled out Miguel Jackson and Kelvin Stevenson, handcuffing
and savagely beating both inmates after a search of their cells.”

Has the Georgia Department of Corrections, in the wake of the inmate strike
of December 2010 embarked on a campaign of brutal retaliation against
inmates in its custody? Is the department deliberately withholding
medical treatment to prisoners its officers have viciously assaulted? Is
the removal of Smith Prison's former warden, and apparent demotion to
a superintendent of a probation facility connected with extensive
ongoing investigations into prison abuse and potential corruption? Have
the department's own internal affairs investigators turned a blind eye
to ongoing threats and beatings inflicted upon prisoners with the
apparent blessings of their supervisors, leaving investigations of these
allegations exclusively to the GBI? And is the Department of
Corrections preparing to go before a pliant southeast Georgia grand
jury, where prisons are one of the region's major industries, in the
hope of seeking pre-emptive indictments against prisoners to shield its
officers and supervisors from civil or criminal prosecution?

The questions around Georgia's Department of Corrections are piling up.
Some of the answers, as well as fuel for brand new questions, are in the
stream of correspondence and open records requests filed by Mario Williams of Williams Oinonen LLC, attorney for several of the brutalized inmates.

From portions of that correspondence we know that on December 31, the day
after a team of citizen observers were admitted to Smith Prison to
interview staff and inmates, correctional officers singled out Miguel
Jackson and Kelvin Stevenson, handcuffing and savagely beating both
inmates after a search of their cells. Smith suffered multiple
indentations to his head, blunt trauma apparently inflicted with a
hammer-like object resulting in weeks of severe untreated pain. Georgia
Diagnostic officials placed Kelevin in max lock down with a broken jaw
that the officials knew needed to be wired, yet, waited nearly three
weeks to do so, and only wired Kelevin's jaw after repeated letters from
Mr. Stevenson's attorney to DOC officials requesting that immediate
action be taken. And it is clear that Miguel Jackson and Kelvin
Stevenson sustained these injuries not during the search, but only after they had been removed in handcuffs from their cells.

We know that all the fruitful investigations and arrest warrants for
guards thus far were conducted and sworn out not by the Department of
Corrections' internal affairs officers, but by the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation. And we understand that the former warden at Smith State
prison has been inexplicably transferred and demoted.

We know that Kelvin Stevenson and Miguel Jackson were denied doctor
visits, urgently needed examinations and access to their own medical
records for weeks after the assault despite daily complaint of hearing
and memory problems, as well as problems with vision and other dangerous
symptoms. The correspondence also documents a series of dire and
terroristic threats made on multiple occasions by Jackson State
correctional officers. After his attorney's repeated complaints to Ricky
Myrick of DOC's Internal Investigations Unit, one of the guards making
said threats was finally transferred out of the wing, but no other
action was taken against him. The correctional officer continues to
incite other inmates against Miguel Jackson by spreading rumors that he
is a snitch.

“Founded
by ex-offenders in Alabama, The Ordinary Peoples Society has worked
with prisoners, their families and communities for more than ten years
in Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana.”

“Over the last three months the attorney for the prisoner's families has had
to send a daily stream of letters, faxes, phone calls and document
requests, visits and other inquiries to uncover and address the denial
of medical care to the beaten prisoners, along with the facts of their
cases,” declared Rev. Kenneth Glasgow of TOPS, The Ordinary Peoples Society.
“The Department of Corrections has dragged its feet at every
opportunity during this time. The fact that GBI has had to take charge
of investigating the vicious assaults of correctional officers and their
supervisors upon prisoners is a clear admission on the part of state
government that the Department of Corrections is unable or unwilling to
uphold the laws it's supposed to enforce.

“So later this year TOPS is taking the lead in convening a series of public hearings throughout the
state in which we will examine the way Georgia's prisons operate, and
specifically look into the wave of beatings, retaliations and cover ups
that followed the inmate strike of December 2010.”

TOPS seems eminently qualified to lead such a public inquiry. In the decade
since its founding The Ordinary Peoples Society has stood with and for
prisoners, their families and communities in Florida, Georgia, Alabama
and Louisiana, both on the level of individual and collective self-help,
as well as advocacy on the level of public policy and public education.
TOPS is working closely with the attorney for the families of prisoners
Miguel Jackson, Kelvin Stevenson, Terrance Dean, and other recent victims of unlawful violence on the part of Georgia correctional officers.

“We found out about TOPS from talking to the families of other prisoners,”
Delma Jackson, the wife of Miguel Jackson told Black Agenda Report.
“They told us that TOPS would work with us and stand with us to get the
justice we need, both in prison and afterward. If there's no jobs or
education there's not much for those who come out of prison, no way for
them to support families and build new lives.”

“Right now our prisons are making visitation and contact with families
unnecessarily difficult and expensive,” Rev. Glasgow told Black Agenda
Report. “DOC charges the families excessive amounts for phone calls out
of its prisons. It levies fines from inmate accounts --- from the money
sent by their families --- for a host of offenses, users fees, fines,
what have you, without any published schedule of fees or fines, and no
public transparency whatsoever. And we have allowed private, for profit
companies, which for all we know are big political contributors, to reap
millions a year from some of the state's poorest citizens --- those
with relatives in prisons --- off money transfers to inmates to and
phone calls from prisoners.”

When you add this to the lack of educational opportunities in and after
prison, there is ample reason for a year-long series of observer visits
and public hearings on how Georgia operates is prisons. One in thirteen
Gerogia adults is currently locked up or on paper,” concluded Glasgow.

“That's a crime, and the public discussion on how to solve it cannot be led by
the people who gave us, and who profit from this dysfunctional system.
TOPS is committed to convening and facilitating real public hearings on
Georgia's prisons and their impact on our larger communities. That is a
discussion which cannot be held without the voices of the formerly
incarcerated, our families, and our communities being heard. TOPS and
our allies are committed to making that happen”

Bruce Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and based in Marietta
GA where he is a state committee member of the Georgia Green Party. He
can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.

Press Release Ga. Prison Beatings

PRESS RELEASE
MARCH 22, 2011

FROM THE ORDINARY PEOPLES SOCIETY, 403 W. Powell St., Dothan AL 36303, 334-671-2882,
topssociety@yahoo.com

Is the GA Dept of Corrections waging an ongoing campaign of retaliation against
inmates in the wake of the December 2010 prison strike?  Correspondence between Atty
Mario Williams of Williams Oinonen LLC, the Atlanta attorney representing several
brutalized inmates, and the GA Department of Corrections, including the results of
Open Records Requests reveal disturbing patterns and unanswered questions.
Documents reveal savage beatings of prisoners by correctional officers followed by
refusal to reveal the extent of the injuries to the famlies of prisoners and in
several cases the apparent withholding of medical care for the severe injuries
inflicted for days and weeks afterward.  The injuries included fractures, severe
blunt trauma inflicted to the head with a hammer-like object, hearing and memory
loss.  In at least one case, correctional officers were arrested, in another, the
former warden of Smith Prison, the scene of some of the beatings, appears to have
been demoted and transferred.  The attorney’s correspondence and records retrieved
via the Open Records Act also reveal that dire and terroristic threats to the lives
of inmates continue to be made by correctional officers, some of whom are named in
grievances and other documents.
The fact that the GBI has had to take charge of investigating some of the assaults
further testifies to the inability or unwillingness of DOC to do so.

Rev. Kenneth Glasgow of TOPS, the Ordinary Peoples Society is working closely with
the legal team representing the prisoners and their families.  "We're also advocates
on the public policy front.  TOPS plans to convene a statewide series of hearings
later this year, convened by the formerly incarcerated around the state, along with
their families, allies and friends to get to the bottom of the growing scandal that
is the prison state in Georgia."
For more on the campaign of retaliation, Black Agenda Report has printed two stories
in the last few days:
“Arrested GA Correctional Officer Oversaw Vicious Beating of Prisoner ‘In His
Official Capacity’”    http://tinyurl.com/4ruvxxg
and
“Georgia Dept of Corrections Withholding Medical Care to Brutalized Inmates,
Retaliatory Campaign Continues”   http://tinyurl.com/458ah4s
Contact:
Rev. Kenneth Glasgow, The Ordinary Peoples Society, 403 W. Powell St., Dothan AL
36303, 334-671-2882, topssociety@yahoo.com
Atty Mario Williams, Williams Oinonen LLC, 44 Broad St NW, Atlanta GA 30303,
404-654-0288, mario@goodgeorgialawyer.com
Bruce A. Dixon, managing editor Black Agenda Report, www.blackagendareport.com,
404-797-2087,bruce.dixon@blackagendareport.com

Pastor Kenneth Glasgow

Founder, National President

The Ordinary People Society (TOPS)

403 West Powell St.

Dothan, AL 36303
Web: www.wearetops.org or www.theordinarypeoplesociety.com or
wearetops.blogspot.com, www.ordinarypeoplenews.com    

Arrested Georgia Correctional Officer Oversaw Vicious Beating of Prisoner “in His Capacity” As Supervisor

March 15, 2011 Bruce A. Dixon Black Agenda Report

By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

In this, the first of several reports on the aftermath of the courageous protest of Georgia prisoners last December, we update the case of Terrance Dean, brutally beaten by prison guards at Macon State Prison on December 16, 2009, and the role played by TOPS, The Ordinary Peoples Society, in working with his family and legal team, and in the larger struggle to roll back the nation's policy of mass incarceration.

Three months after inmate protests at multiple Georgia prisons, public records have emerged to document the vicious assault and battery committed upon handcuffed prisoner Terrance Dean by correctional officers and supervisors of Macon State Prison. The arrest warrants sworn out for one of seven Georgia prison guards arrested in late February alleges that one Christopher Hall, the supervising officer, "was present at the time of this assault [on Terrance Dean], and supervised this act in his capacity as the C.E.R.T. supervisor'"

"Dean has suffered severe and life-altering injuries as a result of his battering by correctional officers, according to his attorney, "Mr. Dean has visited three different medical facilities due to his injuries. He's now at Augusta State Medical Prison, where he receives extensive rehabilitation including speech pathology and daily physical/motor skills rehab so that hopefully he can someday walk, speak and write normally again."

For almost two weeks after the vicious assault Georgia's Department of Corrections failed to notify the prisoner's family of Dean's beating, his critical condition or his whereabouts. It was only when tips reached Dean's family from inside the prison that his sister Wendy Johnson knew something had happened to him. When state officials finally admitted he had been critically injured, the Dean family helped Terrance Dean retain an attorney, Mario Williams of Williams Oinonen LLC. And on the recommendation of other prisoners and their families, the Dean family reached out to Rev. Kenneth Glasgow, founder of The Ordinary Peoples Society, an advocacy organization founded by former inmates. TOPS had been working with current and former prisoners and their families across the southeast for more than a decade.

We waged a successful struggle over several years to restore voting rights not just to former prisoners in Alabama, but to many of the people still serving their time," Rev. Glasgow told us. "We've been providing housing, counseling and a new start to people coming out of the prisons for a good while. And we've been assisting the self-help networks of prisoners still on the inside who want to begin healing themselves, their families and eventually their communities when they reach the outside. So it's no surprise that Ms. Johnson came to us. We checked the references of her Atlanta attorney, and found he came highly recommended. We've been working closely with Mr. Dean's family and their legal team since that point."

Inside sources and public records requested by Dean's attorney, along with known facts of the case together paint a horrifying picture of brutality imposed and impunity enjoyed by correctional officers in Georgia. Allegedly, after a verbal altercation with an officer, Dean was placed in handcuffs and taken to a secluded part of the prison. There he was beaten nearly to death. The Department of Corrections made no effort to contact Dean's family, only admitting he had been injured and transferred when the family and community members demanded to know his condition and whereabouts in front of news media nearly two weeks later.

Dean's family and their attorneys expect to pursue civil remedies against those responsible for the near-fatal beating.

"The fact that the State of Georgia pressed charges against the officers for aggravated battery is a great first step; the Georgia Bureau of Investigations obviously showed a lot of integrity throughout its investigation," declared Dean's Attorney. "More needs to be done, such as better and more training for Correctional Emergency Response Team members on the constitutional limits of force. The Department of Corrections has the ability to require more than the State mandated one hour per year of training in this area."

Pastor Kenneth Glasgow of The Ordinary Peoples Society agrees.

"We know that the brutal beatings by correctional staff and attempts to cover them up are a daily fact of life in prisons across the nation."

"This is why The Ordinary Peoples Society, along with other groups of concerned former prisoners convened the first national meeting of Formerly Incarcerated People the week before last in Selma and Montgomery Alabama. We had representatives of the formerly incarcerated present from all 50 states, and committed ourselves to ongoing action around rolling back the nation's policy of mass incarceration. We know we cannot change the prisons without a massive program to educate our neighbors on how more prisons have made us less safe, less prosperous, and less secure. Our next national meeting of the formerly incarcerated will be in Los Angeles this November. We're in this, with prisoners, their families and communities, for the long haul."

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and based in Marietta GA, where he is also a state committee member of the Green Party of Georgia. He can be contacted at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.

Georgia Prison Strike Update

From: "Political Prisoner News" ppnews@freedomarchives.org
Date: Fri, January 14, 2011

From: David Slavin mailto:dhslavi@emory.edu
Sent: Thu, Jan 13, 2011 10:40 pm

The PRISON STRIKE has ended in 7 Georgia prisons but organizing is
ongoing. All 54,000 Georgia inmates work for "Prison
Industries": not a private corporation but the wholly owned
subsidiary of the Department of Corrections. In effect, PI employs
more workers than Delta Airlines, Coca Cola, Home Depot or any of the
largest corporate employers in the state. Inmates are the largest
single workforce in Georgia. THEY ARE PAID NO WAGES. To anyone who
is familiar with Doug Blackmon's _Slavery By Another Name_, this
forced convict labor system should come as no surprise. It is part
of the "New Jim Crow" mass incarceration system that reincarnates the
Old Jim Crow in the first half of the 20th century.
This action by the inmates was a STRIKE, not a riot or a protest. It
was an action by workers TO WITHHOLD THEIR LABOR by refusing to leave
their cells. The risks they have taken are enormous. Refusal to
work gets you a "Disciplinary Report" which can affect parole and
your "privileges" in prison. The demands they presented were for
WAGES and WORKING CONDITIONS (which in their case of course includes
living conditions). Since the work stoppage involved THOUSANDS OF
INMATES, it is probably the largest strike / labor action in Georgia
in decades. Moreover, the inmates have firmly taken a stand of
interracial solidarity, particularly crucial in Georgia where more
than 1/3 of the inmates are white.

The importance of this interracial strike cannot be
overestimated. These men are taking a stand against conditions that
violate human rights. Five years ago at a forum on Abu Ghraib held
in Atlanta, someone who then worked for the Southern Conference on
Human Rights (speaking for herself, not the SCHR) remarked that the
methods of Abu Ghraib had their origins in practices common in
Southern prisons. If this observation raises skepticism, see the
photos in Blackmon's book showing "stress positions" very similar to
those in the photos from Iraq.

The inmates' resistance brings to mind Michelle Alexander's book The
New Jim Crow, a book that this summer we studied at UUCA. The vast
majority of those in prison have been targets of a 30-year policy of
white supremacist, mass incarceration. Under cover of "the drug war"
and mass felony convictions, a bi-partisan consensus emerged with the
objective result of re-establishing second class citizenship status
for most non-whites in the US -- the New Jim Crow.
Georgia has 54,225 male state prison inmates, according to
dcor.state.ga.us/GDC/OffenderStatistics/jsp/ : 33,689 Black [61.1%]
and 19,459 white [35.9%] with the remaining 4% Hispanics, "Indians",
Asians. Inmates' age distribution is fairly evenly divided, with
2-3% of the population in each year of age from 19 to 50 years
old. There are 3579 women in Georgia prisons: women are 6.6% and men
are 93.4% of the total. Women are not broken down by race. So far
as I know, women inmates are [not yet] involved in the strike.

Figures compiled by the Sentencing Project show that in 2007 Blacks
accounted for 900,000 of the 2.2 million people incarcerated in state
prisons, six times the incarceration rate of whites. One in six
Black men is in the system at any time. Moreover, higher proportions
of whites are locked up in local jails (44%) than in state prisons
(33%), and jails tend to be short term sentences. The highest
disproportions in prison populations are in Northeastern and
Midwestern states. In Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia [as Georgia's
Corrections figures attest], however, the proportion of whites in
prison [not jail] is around 33%, much higher than in other parts of
the US. Theodore William Allen, author of The Invention of the
White Race, points out that where racial inequality has been most
extreme, in the South, whites are the worst off. The greater the gap
between the white and Black worker, the less able white workers are
to defend themselves as workers. The role racial privilege plays in
the social control of white working people, as well as Black,
suggests why incarceration rates of whites are highest in the Deep South.

Working class interracial solidarity anywhere, anytime is of historic
significance, and according to Bruce Dixon's report, it is being
realized in this movement of inmates. The prison population is of
course quintessentially working class, and these workers have
launched a strike for wages and improvement of "working
conditions." They have established interracial solidarity. The
political consequences of their actions could shift politics in
Georgia and far beyond the state; thus the strike deserves solidarity
from every corner.

The inmate demands recall those of Black Reconstruction: education,
wages, decent food and medical care, the right to be in touch with
their families, and a chance at a decent life once they are released
by learning employable skills. In this struggle may lie "the kernel
and meaning of the labor movement" to use the phrase WEB DuBois used
to characterize Black Reconstruction:
"The South, after the war, presented the greatest opportunity for a
real national labor movement which the nation ever saw or is likely
to see for many decades. Yet the labor movement, with but few
exceptions, never realized the situation. It never had the
intelligence or knowledge, as a whole, to see in black slavery and
Reconstruction, the kernel and meaning of the labor movement in the
United States"
[WEB DuBois _Black Reconstruction_ c. 1935; Atheneum edition 1962 p.
353 Ch. IX The Price of Disaster]

Although there have been inquiries from my friends around the country
and demonstrations in several cities, so far white progressives in
Atlanta and Georgia have taken few steps to support this strike. If
we continue to ignore the "kernel and meaning" of the progressive
movement in our own backyard, we risk losing any relevancy we might
have. Especially egregious is the loss of opportunity to support a
movement based on working class interracial solidarity.

As was the case in Iran, the cell phone has been used brilliantly as
a tactical means to communicate with each other and the outside
world. When I was on the faculty of Villanova in 1992, I taught
college courses in a prison outside Philadelphia (Eastern
Pennsylvania Correctional Facility, Graterford PA) under a university
program. I learned first hand from my students the feeling of being
cut off from society. As one of them told me, "we feel like we're
buried alive in here." Cell phone contact has been crucial, but
it's a slender thread. Bootleg phones acquired from the guards can
easily be discovered and confiscated, with disciplinary action taken
against both sides to prevent recurrence. Inmates need to
establish their human right to contact with their families and the
rest of the outside world.

The greatest danger right now is that the protest strike be cut off
from unions and other progressive forces in Georgia and the rest of
the country. The article by Bruce Dixon lists the phone numbers of
the prisons where the protest is taking place. Dixon urges everyone
to call the prison wardens' offices and tell whoever answers that
you've read the protest demands and believe they should be
implemented in the best interests of everyone associated with the
prison system. Inform them that you will be following events
closely and expect the inmates to be treated with respect and not
subjected to intimidation, discipline, or violence.

Other possible avenues of contact: The Office of Ombudsman of
prisons, is a service set up to handle complaints from prisoners'
families. Phone is 404 657 7588 email
address
mailto:ombudsman@dcor.state.ga.us
This suggestion comes from me alone, but sending an email to this address
would require no follow up and hence would not interfere with the
needs of families. Directly communicate with Commissioner Brian
Owens from an email send box at the website
http://www.dcor.state.ga.us "About GDC" on the
home page tool bar, pull down "Contact Us"

Last Sunday, I spoke to Valerie Porter, one of the contacts for the
prisoners in Americus GA, who told me a support group has been
formed called "The Coalition to Respect Prisoners' Rights." This
group, led by families of inmates, Elaine Brown [former national
secretary of the Black Panther Party in the early 1970s], head of
Georgia NAACP, Nation of Islam minister and several others, met with
the governor's representative on Sunday 19 Dec at 3:30 PM. I've
asked someone who attended the meeting to come to the Humanists
meeting and update us on what has transpired since.

Please familiarize yourself with the inmates' demands and read the
Black Agenda Report article by Bruce Dixon
http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/ga-prisoner-strike-continues-second-day-corporate-media-mostly-ignores-them-corrections-offi
The most crucial support we can give is any action which prevents the
prison authorities from cutting these inmates off from the outside world.
in solidarity,

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/wagesnow/petition.html

"Statement of Solidarity with Georgia Prisoner Strike"

hosted on the web by our free online petition service, at:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/wagesnow/

Press conference on Georgia Prisons

Denis O'Hearn Jan 8, 2011

A press conference was held this morning in Atlanta GA to press for
changes in GA prisons. Here is the press release, please post.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 6, 2011
10:30 a.m.
Georgia State Capitol
206 Washington Street
Atlanta, Georgia

NEW CHARGES OF INMATE BEATINGS

Reports from Prison Visits
Set Off Coalition Appeal to DOC and Governor-Elect for More Access

The Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoners' Rights, formed to
support the interests and agenda of thousands of Georgia prisoners
who staged a peaceful protest and work strike initiated early last
December, will host a press conference this Thursday. The mothers and
other family members of Terrance Dean and Miguel Jackson, inmates
reportedly brutally beaten by guards at Macon State and Smith State
Prisons in connection with the strike, will be in attendance.
The press conference follows reports of violent abuses of these men
and others and the findings of fact by Coalition delegations after
visits to two prisons in December. These reports have increased fears
of the targeting of and retaliation against inmates on account of
their peaceful protest for their human rights and raise the urgency
for immediate reform.

"These new developments have increased our fears and our legitimate
call for more access to inmates," said Elaine Brown, Co-Chair of the
Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoners Rights.

Ed Dubose, Coalition Co-Chair and president of the NAACP of Georgia,
stated, "Family members are frantic and mothers are crying and
anguished after learning their loved ones have been badly injured. We
cannot allow those cries to go unanswered. Since the start of the
December 9 peaceful work stoppage and appeal for reform and respect
for human rights, some inmates have been targeted and others have
simply disappeared. We are urging the Department of Corrections and
Governor-Elect Nathan Deal to act now to halt these unjust practices
and treat these men like human beings."

Black, brown, white, Muslim, Christian, Rastafarian prisoners,
including those at Augusta, Baldwin, Calhoun, Hancock, Hays, Macon,
Rogers, Smith, Telfair, Valdosta and Ware State Prisons, joined a
peaceful work stoppage December 9, 2010, refusing to come out of
their cells as part of a petition to the corrections department.

Among concerns expressed by inmates were not being paid for their
labor; being charged excessive fees for basic medical treatments;
language barriers suffered by Latino inmates; arbitrary, harsh
disciplinary practices; too few opportunities for education and self
improvement; and unjust parole denials.

Coalition leaders attending the press conference will be Mr. Dubose,
Ajamu Baraka of the U.S. Human Rights Network, Pastor Kenneth Glasgow
of The Ordinary People Society, Chara Jackson of the ACLU of Georgia,
along with Abdul Sharrief Muhammad of the Nation of Islam.

The prisoners have been petitioning the corrections department for
their human rights, including wages for labor, decent health care and
nutritional meals, a halt to cruel and unusual punishments, and an
end to unjust just parole decisions.

Brutal Reprisals Against Peaceful GA Inmate Strikers Confirmed. Was One Victim Hidden For Weeks By Prison Authorities?

Sat, 01/01/2011 — Bruce A. Dixon Black Agenda Report

Printer-friendly version

By BAR Managing Editor Bruce A. Dixon

Brutal Reprisals Against Peaceful GA Inmate Strikers Confirmed, Was One Victim Hidden For Weeks By Prison Authorities?

By BAR Managing Editor Bruce A. Dixon

Black, brown and white inmates in 6 Georgia prisons nonviolently locked themselves in their cells for several days beginning December 9, demanding wages for work, educational opportunities, adequate food and medical care, just parole decisions and access to their families. The peaceful inmate strikers, as we reported the following day, were already victims of brutal retaliation on the part of correctional officials, ranging from cutoffs of heat and hot water to unprovoked assaults by correctional employees upon prisoners.

It now appears that at least one inmate, Terrance Dean of Bibb County GA was brutally assaulted by staff at Macon State Prison on or about December 16 was so severely injured prison officials secretly evacuated him to a hospital in Atlanta without bothering to inform his family. It's not known at this time which Department of Corrections officials authorized the secret evacuation, who decided not to notify Dean's family of either his injuries or his whereabouts, or whether the prisoner was transported the roughly 130 miles to Atlanta via ground or air ambulance. The first word the prisoner's family received of either the beating or Dean's whereabouts was when they were contacted December 30 or 31 by the friends and associates of other prisoners on the outside. Neither the Department of Corrections nor Atlanta Medical Center, where the prisoner was held for about two weeks, has released any information about the extent of the prisoner's injuries, his current medical condition, or how he was injured.

The morning of Friday, December 31, Dean's sister, along with ACLU attorney Chara Jackson and GA state NAACP chief Ed DuBose representing the Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoner's Rights showed up at the Atlanta Medical Center demanding to see the injured prisoner or at least have his whereabouts confirmed. After several hours of delay, correctional officials said his mother and sister, along with the attorney would be allowed to visit him at Jackson State Prison Sunday, January 2, but they offered no explanation of the reasons for his secretive transfer. Hospital officials also refused to offer any information on Dean's injuries, even to his family, on grounds of doctor-patient confidentiality.

“We assume that state officials have a written policy requiring them to inform family members in the event of the serious injury of their loved ones in prison,” said the Georgia Green Party's Hugh Esco. “If Georgia corrections personnel did brutally beat Terrance Dean, transfer him secretly more than a hundred miles from the scene of the crime scene and neglect to inform his family about his injuries or whereabouts they could be parties to a criminal conspiracy. The Green Party has written a letter to the outgoing and incoming governors asking them to look carefully at the events surrounding the case of Mr. Dean. We also note that the Department of Corrections promised access to the 37 prisoners whom it transferred as a result of the inmate strike that began on December 9. We hope this is a promise they keep, so that the public can get a complete and accurate picture of what goes on behind those walls.”

Dean's sister, attorney Chara Jackson, and the NAACP's Ed DuBose briefed the press at Atlanta Medical Center, including representatives from at least one local TV station repeatedly beginning at noon on Friday, and assured Black Agenda Report that they will attempt to see Terrance Dean at Jackson State Prison on Sunday, January 2. But as of nearly 24 hours later, on the morning of January 1, 2011 no corporate news outlet is publicly asking or answering any of the key questions around the assault on Terrance Dean, or what look for all the world like official attempts to conceal it from his family and the public.

“This is no surprise,” offered BAR executive editor Glen Ford. “For corporate journalists, a story without input from government or corporate officials is no story at all. For these so-called reporters, the story has a big hole in it as long as state officials decline to comment, even though official misconduct on the part of government IS the story. If the state declines to comment until Sunday or Monday, they will sit on the story till then. Establishment journalists are nothing if not disciplined and well-trained.”

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, based in Marietta GA, and a member of the state committee of the Georgia Green Party. Both Black Agenda Report and the Georgia Green Party are members of the Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoner's Rights.

Georgia Prison System Retaliates Against Prisoners Involved in Historic Protest

The Louisiana Justice Institute Dec. 31, 2010

From Our Friends at the US Human Rights Network and the Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoners’ Rights:
The Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoners’ Rights learned that on or about December 16, Terrance Bryant Dean was severely beaten by guards at Macon State Prison where he was incarcerated. The Coalition asserts this brutal beating was not isolated and was a retaliatory act carried out by the Department of Corrections (DOC) against non-violent striking inmates. The Coalition was formed to support the interests and agenda of thousands of Georgia prisoners who staged a peaceful protest and work strike initiated in early December.

The Coalition is concerned about continued violent retaliation against the multiracial group of prisoners who staged a peaceful protest to be paid for their labor, for educational opportunities, access to family members, an end to cruel and unusual punishments, and other human rights. The eight-day strike, begun in early December, involved united prison populations at various prisons, including Hays, Smith, Telfair and Macon State Prisons.

Dean’s mother, Mrs. Willie Maude Dean, stated that since she learned from inmates that her son had been beaten, she has been given no information about his condition or whereabouts by the DOC, and that she and Dean’s sisters, Wendy Johnson and Natasha Montgomery, have been denied access to him since they discovered he was hospitalized at Atlanta Medical Center.

It was around the same time of this beating that the Coalition was meeting with the DOC making the demand that a Coalition fact-finding delegation be provided access to certain prisons to investigate conditions inside.

The DOC acceded to provide such access to a Coalition delegation—starting at Macon State Prison. However, even as the delegation visited Macon State, the DOC was apparently covering-up Dean’s reported retaliatory beating there by several CERT (Correctional Emergency Response Team) Team members, who witnesses reported restrained Dean after an alleged altercation with a guard, dragged him from his cell in handcuffs and leg irons, removed him to the prison gym and beat him unconscious. The beating remained unreported by the DOC even though the Coalition specifically raised questions about reports of retaliatory beatings and about the status and whereabouts of 37—or more—men the DOC identified as strike “conspirators.”

Mrs. Dean told Coalition leaders last night that when she asked Macon State Warden McLaughlin where was her son, based on concerns raised by prisoner reports he had been beaten nearly to death, McLaughlin told her he was “in the hole,” or, an isolation cell. In fact, Mr. Dean was already in the hospital.

The Coalition is raising concerns about the potential cover up of an attempted murder and the refusal, to date, of the prison to identify the missing 37 or more inmates deemed “conspirators” by the DOC. The Coalition is calling for the DOC and other state officials to sit down with the inmates to start a process to realize the inmates’ human rights.

The Coalition, which has grown into an entity of thousands of supporters and hundreds of organizations across the U.S. and internationally, includes the NAACP, the Nation of Islam, the ACLU, the U.S. Human Rights Network, All of Us or None, The Ordinary People Society and many others, and is co-chaired by Dubose and author-activist Elaine Brown.

A Coalition fact-finding delegation visited Macon State Prison on December 20 and was visiting Smith State Prison yesterday, December 29th, when the Coalition uncovered facts about Mr. Dean’s reported, brutal beating. The Coalition is planning to release a full report of its investigations and prison visits once the investigations are completed.

Family members and Coalition members, including NAACP Georgia State Conference President Ed Dubose and Georgia ACLU Legal Director Chara Jackson, will attempt to see the beaten prisoner today at Atlanta Medical Center.

Photo Above: Young prisoner Rodriques Dukes in solitary confinement at Georgia's Hays State Prison.