[Puffer Fish]

Alternative title: prisoners killed by guards or prison conditions and nobody really cares

This thread will feature multiple stories.


Boiled to Death

The Miami Herald featured a story about a Florida prisoner who was scalded to death in boiling water in a shower closet in a confinement unit at Dade Correctional Institution. Darren Rainey, 50 years of age, was serving a two-year sentence for drug possession, and was killed in the prison on June 23, 2012.

Rainey suffered from mental illness and had defecated in his cell. When he refused to clean up the mess, he was placed in a small shower for almost two hours under scalding hot water. According to other prisoners in the unit, the shower was used as punishment for prisoners who angered the guards; in the 30 minutes before Rainey collapsed he reportedly screamed and pleaded for help.

"How do you like your shower?" one guard taunted him, said prisoner Mark Joiner. "He was crying, please stop," but the guards said "Enjoy your shower" and left.

The 180-degree water left Rainey's skin peeling from his body. When an infirmary nurse took his temperature, it registered 102 degrees. He died shortly afterwards.

Joiner was ordered by guards to clean up the scene afterwards; he was provided with bleach and gloves, and found one blue canvas shoe in the shower plus large pieces of skin that had boiled off Rainey's body. "I just kept shoving it in the shoe," he said. "And then I asked, 'what do you want me to do with it?' And [the guard] said just throw it in the trash. So I did."

The Metro-Dade police department was called to the prison but did little investigating, failing to even keep the 911 tape. Two years later an autopsy report had not been issued; Rainey's death seemed to have been forgotten, just like other abuses in Florida Department of Corrections facilities. Then the Miami-Herald began to investigate after learning of efforts by prisoners such as Joiner and Harold Hampstead to bring Rainey's death to light.

Following the Herald's report nearly two years after Rainey's scalding death, several Florida Department of Corrections investigators filed a whistleblower suit claiming they faced retaliation when they tried to expose corruption, brutality and officially sanctioned gang violence within the prison system.

Their complaint revealed details surrounding the September 2010 death of Randall Jordan-Aparo, who was serving an 18-month sentence fr credit card fraud and drug charges, in a confinement unit at the Franklin Correctional Institution. Florida Department of Corrections investigator Aubrey P. Land had been dispatched to FCI in early 2013 to look into problems at the facility. "We got inmates down there that are getting their throats slashed on a regular basis," he said in an interview with Melinda Miguel, Governor Rick Scott's Inspector General. "Their faces slashed, beat down with locks and socks; tremendous amount of contraband allegations that staff is ordering this and bringing in contraband and being paid and everyone we're talking to is saying, 'You know they killed that kid.'"

Unlike many prison employees, Land not only listened but investigated. "So finally, I had enough, and I said go back and start looking at all the deaths," he stated. "Nobody would give me a name, an I find Randall Jordan-Aparo and immediately bells and whistles start going off. This thing ain't pretty."


Gassed to Death

On September 15, 2010, Jordan-Aparo, 27, complained of back pain after falling while playing basketball. He collapsed several times over the next few days, and was taken to the infirmary three times with a 102-degree temperature. Nurse Martha Greene performed an electrocardiogram but admitted she was not proficient at reading the results. Nonetheless, she concluded his heart was working properly.

The on-call prison physicial, Dr. Mohammad Choudhary, instruced Greene to begin an IV and keep Jordan-Aparo in the infirmary. The nurses were unable to insert the IV after several attempts, so they gave up and left him in the infirmary.

At about 4 a.m. on September 18, Jordan-Aparo complained to LPN Lucy Franklin about pain and requested to be sent to a hospital. After his request was denied, Jordan-Aparo said, "I'm going to sue your (*)(*)(*)(*)ing ass. I need to go to the hospital."

Greene called security, and without consulting a doctor Captain Mitchell Brown ordered that Jordan-Aparo be placed in an isolation cell for causing a "disturbance". A pre-confinement physical alleged he "had no known medical conditions that would be exacerbated by the use of chemical agents", despite his medical records indicating he had a disease that could cause respiratory difficulties.

According to prisoner witinesses, Sgt. Kevin Hampton told Jordan-Aparo, "Ain't nobody comin' to help you." He then ordered him to "man up" and be quiet.

With the approval of Col. Timothy Copeland at 11:25 a.m., Lt. Rollin "Suttie" Austin ordered Jordan-Aparo to be gassed. Over the next 40 minutes he was sprayed three times with three bursts per application of pepper spray; the third was three bursts of tear gas, which causes severe burning in the lungs.

Just 10 minutes of exposure to tear gas in such a confined space could be lethal, said Sven-Eric Jordt, an associate professor in anesthesiology at Duke University. "Obviously, the agent was sprayed directly on to the inmate and may have deposited on his skin, clothing, eyes, and mouth at much higher concentration, with less of it airborne, making the concentrations that much higher."

Guards said they then "escorted" Jordan-Aparo to a shower closet for decontamination. According to other prisoners he was dragged. Photographs and additional evidence put the guard's claim of decontamination efforts in question, the Miami-Herald reported.

"He was orange," one prisoner told investigators. The photos they viewed in 2013 showed Jordan-Aparo's body still coated with orange tear gas residue. They also found the cell had residue everywhere; the floor was smeared with orange, which also covered the the sink and toilet, and there was a dense orange cloud above the top bunk. Although guards said they had provided Jordan-Aparo with fresh clothes, he was in dirty orange-stained boxers when later found dead in his cell.

"I can't take it, I can't take the gas, I can't breathe," he cried out while being tear gassed, according to a prisoner witnesses. Jordan-Aparo was seen at 12:30 p.m. by prison nurses Franklin and Riley. Because he was allegedly uncooperative, despite video showing he was so weak coming out of the shower that a wheelchair was required, Riley was unable to obtain a blood pressure reading. Dr. Choudhary ordered over the phone that his blood pressure be taken, but the nurses instead allowed guards to take him back to his isolation cell. Two hours later, the nurses made another attempt to take Jordan-Aparo's blood pressure. He was unable to move, refused to cooperate and would not sign a release form, according to prison records.

At 4:30 p.m., Sgt. Hampton found Jordan-Aparo sprawled on the floor of his cell when serving the dinner meal. He allegedly refused to eat but gave a "thumbs up" sign. Jordan-Aparo was not checked on again until 6:08 p.m. At that time his lifeless body was discovered with "his mouth and nose [...] pressed to the bottom of the door, as if trying to gulp fresh air through the thin crack," the Herald reported. A paperback bible was lying under his shoulder.

"I've done this for 30 years. My skin doesn't crawl very often," said Land, the Florida Department of Corrections investigator. "They killed that damn kid. He laid there for five days begging for help." An autopsy found Jordan-Aparo's death was caused by a rare blood disorder that was treatable.

Previously another prisoner had died after being gassed by guards - Rommell Johnson, 44, who died at the Northwest Florida Receptin Center in June 2010. Although he had chronic asthma, his death was found to be accidental by a medical examiner and the Florida Department of Corrections inspector general. His mother received a $175,000 settlement after filing a lawsuit. Howeverm Johnson's death was opened for reexaination in March 2015 following widespread publicity related to other prisoner's deaths.


Unfortunately, the reason why these types of things are allowed to go on is the widespread prevalent view in society that these people basically "deserve whatever they get", so there is a great degree of indifference among the leaders and officials who should be protecting this vulnerable population.
Prisoners are also in a very vulnerable position, reliant on guards for everything they need and not being allowed freedom of movement.

[Puffer Fish]

Sometimes guards kill prisoners by placing them in the same cell with another dangerous prisoner.

An elderly handicapped prisoner was killed by his psychotic cellmate at State Correctional Institution Forest, in Pennsylvania. Evidence suggests the guards may have intentionally placed him in the same cell as the other prisoner, who was known to be dangerous, to try to get rid of him.

Elwood Brasswell, 28, had a violent history attributed to his "accute psychotic behavior." A diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia plus a charge of aggravated assault while he was incarcerated led to Brasswell being placed in a Restricted Housing Unit (RHU) with a Z-Code status, meaning he was not to be housed with another prisoner.

Fredrick Kirkland, 63, suffered from physical disabilities that required him to use a wheelchair and wear adult diapers. He was also afflicted with mental disabilities that affected his short-term memory, which resulted in frequent rule violations because he was unable to remember and comply with prison policies.

The complaint alleged that Special Needs Unit Manager Erin Wallace disliked Kirland and instructed guards to issue misconduct violations against him with the goal of placing him in RHU. That goal was accomplished on August 21,2012.

At around 1:30 a.m. the next day, Brasswell awoke to have a drink of water and eat two apples. He also decided to kill Kirkland. Brasswell later explained that he thought Kirkland was God and wanted his powers.

Brasswell lured Kirkland from his bed by explaining that a nurse wanted him. As Kirkland approached the cell door, Brasswell repeatedly punched hum in the back of the head until he dropped to the ground. He then repeatedly punched him in the back of the head until he dropped to the ground. He then repeatedly stepped on Kirkland's head and placed a pillow over his face for about 20 minutes.

Once Kirkland was no longer moving, Brasswell tried to use his hands to break Kirland's neck. He then used torn bed sheet strips to hang Kirkland from the top bunk. Next, Kirkland's body was placed on the bottom bunk and beaten with a sock full of soap.

Brasswell urinated and defecated on Kirkland's body and rubbed feces on Kirkland's face and mouth. Finally he attempted to bite off Kirkland's penis, later explaining that was the source of his power. Brasswell was subsequently found guilty but mentally ill of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.

Surveillance video evidence established that guards made no rounds between 1:40 and 5:40 a.m., when a nurse arriving with medication discovered Kirkland's body.

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections ended up paying $250,000 to settle a lawsuit on behalf of the deceased's estate, represented by attorney Susan N. Williams.

[Puffer Fish]

Guard may have forced prisoner to overdose on medication
( alternate title: "Female prisoner dies under suspicious circumstances" )

Latandra Ellington was a prisoner at Lowell Correctional Institution. She was 36 and a mother of four serving a 22 month sentence for grand theft. Just 10 days before her death she had sent a letter to her aunt saying she was in fear for her life.

Ellington wrote that she feared "Sgt. Q.", who was later identified as Sergeant Patrick Quercioli. "He was gone beat me to death and mess me like a dog," she wrote. "He was all in my face. Sgt. Q then he grab his radio and said he was gone bust me in the head with it."

As a result of Ellington's allegations she was placed in a confinement unit for protection, where she was found unresponsive in her cell on October 1, 2014. The medical examiner's report determined her death was due to medical causes, though Ellington's family suspected foul play.

Union officials said Sgt. Quercioli was on vacation when Ellington died. Prisoners who contacted the Miami Harold claimed another guard had encouraged Ellington to complain about Quercioli's threats, then escorted her to confinement the day she died. They urged officials to check surveillance video to see if that guard was the last one to see her alive. The prisoners also wrote that Ellington's prior cellmate had been threatened by guards, who allegedly told her that if she talked, "The same thing that happened to [Ellington] would happen to her."

"Our families think we come here and we're safe, but that's not the case," wrote one prisoner who had spent a decade at the prison. I've seen a lot of injustices, but no one cares, and as a means of survival you learn to turn your head and stay silent in order to stay alive."

A second, independent autopsy arranged by Ellington's family found she had lethal levels of blood pressure medication in her system; her family also said there were bruises on her body and a cut on her face.

Four unexplained deaths occurred at Lowell Correctional Institution in 2014. They remain "under investigation".

(Sgt. Quercioli was later terminated from his job on August 4, 2015)


Guards sought to get rid of problematic prisoner to cover up their illegal prison dealings

There was one case where guards ordered a hit on a prisoner to have him "removed" - permanently. Florida Department of Corrections Sergeants Robert Simmons and Delrikos A. Brooks face numerous felony charges, including ordering the murder of Taylor Correctional Institution prisoner David Powell.

Authorities allege Sgt. Brooks received up to $24,000 to make eight trips to Tampa to pick up drugs and cell phones from prisoner David Cancel’s brother. Cancel, a one-time high-ranking gang member, then sold the contraband to other prisoners. Brooks was described as an "alpha" member of the prison's Bloods gang.

A hit was placed on Powell after he caught Sgt. Brooks giving a cell phone to another prisoner. When he threatened to expose Brooks, Simons spread the word among prison gang members that Powell was a snitch. The next day several prisoners jumped Powell on the recreation yard and stabbed him, though he escaped serious injury.

Brooks and Simmons then sent another prisoner to kill Powell the next day. The plot proceeded with the help of former FDOC guard Valshantaya Cook, who is accused of letting prisoner Ernest Harrington into Powell's unit. Harrington stabbed Powell, but again he wasn't seriously injured.

Cook was subsequently charged with multiple felonies, including money laundering, smuggling contraband into the prison and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. In addition to the charge related to ordering a hit on Powell, Brooks and Simmons face charges for money laundering and directing gang activities.

[Puffer Fish]

Baked to Death

In May 2011, Sidney Webb and his mother visited his younger brother Allen in prison. While incarcerated, Robert Allen Webb (his full name) was diagnosed with below average cognitive ability and housed with other developmentally disabled prisoners.

His brother appeared pale and gaunt. Allen asked for a Coca-Cola from a vending machine, which he downed before ordering another and another. Can’t you buy these from the commissary? Sidney asked. Yes, Allen said, but the cans would explode, because it was so hot in his cell. The heat was so severe, in fact, that Allen hinted he might not make it out of prison alive. If he died there, he said, the family should just let the prison bury him — he’d put them through enough.

Sidney waved off his brother’s gloomy talk and promised they’d go fishing when he got out.

A few months later, the news came in a call from a prison chaplain. “I’m sorry to inform you that your brother has passed away,” he told Sidney. Then the chaplain said something unexpected: When Allen’s body was found, it was hot to the touch. The chaplain was sure the heat had killed him and suggested that Sidney investigate.

Looking back, Sidney said, he was naive for not heeding Allen’s warnings. But he reserves his harshest judgment for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. “They murdered my brother,” he said.
​
Robert Allen Webb had reported dizziness shortly before his death in 2011, after a month that featured 18 days that climbed above 100 degrees.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017 ... ot-prisons

On its corrections department website, Florida lists the availability of air-conditioning as one of many “misconceptions” about its prison system, along with cable television. “We couldn’t afford to do it if we wanted to,” State Sen. John Whitmire, who chairs the Texas Senate’s criminal justice committee, told an interviewer in 2011 about air-conditioning in prisons. “But number one we just don’t want to.”

Among roughly 150,000 people in Texas prisons, about four in five have no access to air-conditioning in their cells.
​

Mentally ill former marine baked to death in New York Prison
- high humidity, lack of adequate ventilation, and interaction with psychiatric medication all factors

Jerome Murdough, “basically baked to death” in his 6'-by-10' cinderblock cell in Rikers Island. According to the AP, Murdough, who was homeless and on anti-psychotropic and anti-seizure medication, had been at Rikers for about a week, after being picked up by police in February on a misdemeanor trespassing charge for sleeping on the roof of a Harlem housing project. On the night he died, Murdough had complained of being overheated. Because he was housed in a special unit for mentally ill inmates, officers were supposed to check on his cell every 15 minutes, but instead he was ignored and left alone. When his cell was finally opened, four hours later, Murdough was already dead, and his internal body temperature and the temperature in his cell were at least 100 degrees.

At Rikers, the proportion of inmates with a diagnosed mental illness has jumped to 40 percent, up from 20 percent just eight years ago, according to the Department of Corrections. Jails are neither designed nor equipped to be mental institutions and, unsurprisingly, locking up people who are in need of psychiatric care has resulted in mayhem. A New York Times investigation into conditions at Rikers Island, published just one day before Murdough’s death was reported, found that at least 12 inmates have been slashed or stabbed since New Year's Eve.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/znwm ... ntally-ill

Both articles go on to state how some of the medications these prisoners are on can make their bodies more vulnerable to excessive heat conditions.

[Puffer Fish]

Recovering drug addict dies from withdrawal symptoms after being jailed for failing to pay parking ticket

Macomb County sheriffs picked up Stojcevski in 2014 after he failed to pay a $772 traffic ticket for careless driving. Stojcevski was placed in a jail cell and later a mental health cell, even though a nurse who evaluated Stojcevski suggested putting him in a drug detox unit.

He was supposed to serve 30 days in jail for not paying the ticket. But he would be held there, naked (inmates don't wear clothes in the mental health unit, apparently for their own protection), until his death, 17 days after he was locked up.

Prior to his jail stint, Stojcevski was being treated for his drug addiction with methadone, Xanax, and Klonopin to stave off withdrawal symptoms, which can be deadly. Even a basic knowledge of these drugs and addiction suggests that suddenly yanking Stojcevski off of his medication would cause withdrawal - and that's exactly what happened when jail officials didn't give him the drugs.

Over 17 days, Stojcevski displayed typical withdrawal symptoms. He didn't eat, likely due to withdrawal-induced nausea. He shook and appeared to experience seizures. He seemed to hallucinate, reenacting a previous fight with an inmate. On his last two days, he laid on the floor, shaking and in clear distress.

During all this time, staffers rarely tended to Stojcevski's needs, even though his cell was under surveillance 24 hours a day. As he lay on the floor shaking and not eating his food over 48 hours, no one showed up to help until the very end. But it was too late - he was pronounced dead at the hospital.
​
https://www.vox.com/2015/9/26/9399391/m ... stojcevski

[Puffer Fish]

update about the prisoner who was boiled to death:

There was no question that Darren Rainey died in the showers of the Dade Correctional Institution in 2012. What was unanswered was whether the officers who locked Rainey for two hours in showers that could run as hot at 160 degrees were criminally liable for his death.

That answer came last month, when the state attorney for Miami-Dade County released an "In Custody Death Investigation Close-Out Memo" that attributed Rainey's death to schizophrenia, heart disease, and "confinement inside the shower room." Yet the state attorney declined to press criminal charges against the officers or the prison, saying instead that "the evidence does not show that Rainey's well-being was grossly disregarded by the correctional staff."

The details of Rainey's death are as grisly as they are tragic. Rainey, schizophrenic and heavily medicated, was a resident of Dade's "Temporary Transitional Unit" which houses mentally disabled inmates. According to the report, corrections officers Roland Clarke and Cornelius Thompson took Rainey to the showers after he defecated in his cell and smearing the feces on himself and the cell.

Determining what exactly happened from there depends on whom you believe. Harold Hempstead, an inmate whose cell was below the shower, said he heard much of the incident, including Rainey screaming, "I can't take it anymore!" Another inmate said he heard guards sarcastically ask Rainey "Is it hot enough?" Rainey allegedly screamed, kicked the door, and begged to be let out, before he was found unresponsive almost two hours after he was locked in.

A later investigation found that the water temperature, which could only be controlled from a closet outside the showers, could reach as high as 160 degrees. Mark Joiner, another former inmate at Dade, said guards ordered him to clean pieces of skin that had peeled off Rainey's body from the shower floor. And nurses allegedly said Rainey's body "was covered in burns so severe that his skin came off at the touch," according to the New Yorker.

The Close-Out Memo, on the other hand gave the benefit of the doubt to Thompson and Clarke, who told detectives he made sure the water wasn't too hot. And although a preliminary medical report detailed "visible trauma ... throughout the decedents' body," the final autopsy, not completed until 2016 and yet to be released found no trauma and "no thermal injuries (burns) of any kind on his body."

In the end, the state attorney cited a lack of sufficient and consistent evidence in deciding not to criminally charge any of the officers involved in Rainey's death.

http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2017/0 ... rison.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-e ... 15793.html

[Puffer Fish]

And if you think absolutely none of these type of things go on in the EU, maybe you should see this thread:
The European Arrest Warrant, People's Rights Being Abused
viewtopic.php?f=51&p=15046616#p15046616


People have been put in jail for unpaid debts in the US, see this thread:
Criminalization of debt in the U.S.
viewtopic.php?f=115&t=177382

Some of those people suffered some really degrading treatment.

[Puffer Fish]

A former Clackamas County jail inmate with a bowel condition claims that, despite his repeated pleas, he was denied medical attention and toilet paper and was severely punished when he caused a toilet to overflow.

Kyle Bigbee claims the county and 14 Clackamas County Sheriff's Office employees violated his civil rights, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Portland.

Bigbee had ulcerative colitis, which resulted in the removal and surgical reconstruction of his colon in 2002.

Bigbee's condition "requires him to void his bowels frequently (about once every 90 minutes) and it causes very loose bowel movements consistent with diarrhea," according to the lawsuit.

"The condition also requires Mr. Bigbee to consistently consume water, so that he does not suffer dehydration," the lawsuit said.

Deputies arrested Bigbee on contempt of court charges on April 1, 2013. The charges were later dismissed.

Bigbee claims the following occurred at the jail:

He was placed in an isolation cell. A deputy ignored his request to make a phone call, to have a medical evaluation and to get some toilet paper.

No one responded when he pushed an emergency button.

Bigbee was transferred to another cell where the emergency button wasn't working. Deputies again ignored his requests.

Bigbee used the toilet but "without toilet paper, he was forced to use his underwear to clean himself."

"He placed his underwear in the toilet, which caused the toilet to overflow spreading feces on the floor of the cell," the suit says.

Bigbee said he spent the next 28 hours in a high-security cell without a toilet, only a grate in the floor.

Bigbee claims he was restrained for four hours in "a seated or kneeling position, and his arms extended out to his sides, and hands cuffed to rings on the bottom of the cell."

Bigbee said he "was forced to void his bowels on himself and on areas of the cell" and spent many hours naked because he had no shirt "and his pants were soon soiled with feces."

Bigbee said deputies taunted him, called him a crude name and refused to give him water for hours.

A few hours before he was released at 9:30 p.m. on April 2, 2013, Bigbee was taken to the jail's medical facility for a shower and medical screening.

After his release, Bigbee went to Oregon Health Science University, where he was treated for dehydration and nerve damage in his wrists.

Clackamas County Counsel Stephen Madkour said that after receiving a tort claim notice from Bigbee in September 2013, the county investigated the incident.

"As a result of that investigation we concluded that these claims were without legal merit and we will fully defend against these allegations brought against the county and our deputies," Madkour said.
​
The Oregonian, 2015, article by Steve Mayes
https://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascou ... oblem.html

[Puffer Fish]

story from one man who was being held in jail before his trial, they denied him real pain medication after he had been sent to hospital and just undergone a hernia operation:

I got a hernia here because I lifted too much weight. I noticed it had popped out a great deal - this overwhelmed me and I actually passed out. They took me to the clinic. They told me to push it back in myself and that they would give me some pain medication and sent me back to my cell. A month later, unexpectedly the hernia popped back out and completely blocked my G.I. tract. Beginning Sunday night, I began to vomit everything up. Tuesday they finally took me to the clinic, where the physician tried to repack my hernia (very, very painful!) to no avail. After awhile they decided to send me to the hospital. They asked me how I was going to pay for this and fortunately I had photocopies of my wife's group health insurance coverage ID card for me. They did get to me to the hospital where they scheduled me for surgery immediately. I stayed in the hospital until the next Sunday, and then I was returned to the jail. My physician at the hospital wanted to continue the heavy-duty pain medications I was on, but the jail will not allow such things, so I was prescribed ibuprofen and acetaminophen in high doses. I received my first dose of these lighter painkillers in jail after having gone with NO pain medication for three days - while healing from surgery.
​
He was eventually found not guilty at trial after being held in jail for nearly three years.

http://www.jailhousestories.org/stephen ... ery-county

Just to point out the obvious, in case anyone was not aware, I would definitely not describe ibuprofen and acetaminophen as real painkillers. They are basically Advil and Tylenol. Advil is routinely taken by people for headaches. Tylenol is routinely taken by people who have the flu, and helps knock them out so they can sleep. Both are available without a prescription and both also come in forms marketed for small children. Yes, they might technically be able to block pain a little bit at higher doses, but these are not really what most people would consider real pain medications. Relying on Advil and Tylenol to deal with pain after a surgery is absurd and inhumane.

[Puffer Fish]

stories of medical neglect:


Sick woman dies of dehydration in jail

A 50-year-old woman, who being treated for a stomach illness, was arrested in the hospital for failing to pay court fines. In jail, she became too sick to eat and vomited all night. She was given a trash bag to vomit in, but was mostly ignored. Eventually she became too weak to even call for help. After 27 hours in the jail cell she died.

http://www.postandcourier.com/article/2 ... /160229636


Arizona Prisoner dies from Lung Cancer and gross neglect

Ferdinand Dix had been sentenced to 6 years in Arizona state prison for drug crimes and forgery. The man also had lung cancer, and made multiple pleas for medical treatment. Instead of receiving proper attention, Dix was told to drink energy drinks. The cancer eventually moved to the rest of his body, severely impacting his liver and lymph nodes, and ultimately resulting in Dix's death. A complaint alleges that Dix had been exhibiting signs and symptoms of lung cancer over a two-year period prior to his death. During this time the prisoner was seen by a physician only once, and that was only after Dix had been rushed to a local hospital in critical condition, only two weeks prior to his death. The prisoner had suffered gross medical neglect, and by the time he was finally taken to the hospital it was far too late. The hospital staff observed that Dix's liver was grotesquely enlarged, 4 times bigger than a normal liver. During the last few months preceding his death Dix suffered horribly.

[Dimetrodon]

Yes, our prisons do need reform. We don't have the worst prisons on planet Earth, but this is screwed up.

[jimjam]

jimjam had the honor of spending a short time behind bars in the notorious (now closed) Tombs prison in lower Manhattan.