Senior citizen torture to near death in the LA County jail for selling raw milk

reply to post by MrWendal


I believe the guy, but what he suffered was nothing (despite it being totally unacceptable) in comparrision to some in our largest prison system in the world, not just as a % of population but in outright numbers, loads of whom are in for smoking that which can not be named and used for labor which puts folks on the outside out of jobs, because you can not compete with an enterprise that has such a low cost funded by the tax payer. I'm not saying all our facilities are really bad, and I believe the vast majority of U.S. prison officers are decent individuals doing their best in difficult circumstances. But when horrific abuse by the few goes unreported and uninvestigated, it solidifies into a general climate of acceptance among the many.

I knew someone that lost 15 lbs in 4 weeks, and they were not overweight by any stretch when they went in, it took 5 days to get them out once proven not guilty because these "things take time". Heaven knows how long it would have been if family hadn't been calling every day. Prisons are their own little worlds.... and it seems a lot of them are failing to maintain reasonable standards. Also heaven forbid if you have a mental illness and your meds stop working (they can) and you say urinate in public, you are 3 times more likely to end up incarcerated that hospitalized on a 1013 (like Britiny Spear's family did to her .. but then she had loads of money !)
www.usatoday.com...

The ACLU National Prison Project and Prison Law Office have filed a class action suit against the state of Arizona for neglecting prisoners' medical and psychiatric treatment needs and inappropriately placing the mentally ill in solitary confinement for extended periods of time, causing further trauma and deterioration.
arizonaprisonwatch.blogspot.com...


In one horrific scene, a naked man, passive and vacant, is seen being led out of his cell by prison guards. They strap him into a medieval-looking device called a ‘restraint chair’. His hands and feet are shackled, there’s a strap across his chest, his head lolls forward. He looks dead. He’s not. Not yet.
The chair is his punishment because guards saw him in his cell with a pillowcase on his head and he refused to take it off. The man has a long history of severe schizophrenia. Sixteen hours later, they release him from the chair. And two hours after that, he dies from a blood clot resulting from his barbaric treatment.
The tape comes from Utah – but there are others from Connecticut, Florida, Texas, Arizona and probably many more. We found more than 20 cases of prisoners who’ve died in the past few years after being held in a restraint chair.

Frank Valdes started writing to local Florida newspapers to expose the corruption and brutality of prison officers. So a gang of guards stormed into his cell to shut him up. They broke almost every one of his ribs, punctured his lung, smashed his spleen and left him to die.
Several of the guards were later charged with murder, but the trial was held in their own small hometown where almost everyone works for, or has connection with, the five prisons which ring the town. The foreman of the jury was former prison officer. The guards were all acquitted.
Meanwhile, the warden who was in charge of the prison at the time of the killing – the same man who changed the policy on videoing – has been promoted. He’s now the man in charge of all the Florida prisons.

www.informationclearinghouse.info...
Deborah Davies is a reporter for Channel 4 Dispatches (UK TV). Her investigation, Torture: America’s Brutal Prisons, was shown on Wednesday, March 2, at 11.05pm 2011.

Originally posted by defcon5

The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

Originally posted by MrWendal
Have you ever been to jail?

I have never been to prison or jail as an inmate, but I have been in prisons before as a guest of DOC LEO friends of mine. One of my best friends has been a lieutenant with them for close to 20 years, and is their PBA rep. Another friend was a DOC nurse. I know all about what goes on there, and I know that its someplace you want to stay out of. The officers there can, quite legally, make your life in there a living hell if you give them a hard time, and its all well within departmental policy. Jails, and prisons are not intended to be a nice stay at the local Hyatt.

Agreed, it is not intended to be a nice place. That being said, this man's crime is selling Milk. He is not some menace to society. He does not force anyone to buy his product. It's Milk, not crack. Now if there is something wrong with the Milk and people get sick, guess what? That is where personal responsibility comes into play. Again, no one is being forced to buy his product, he is not selling it as something else. It you are buying his milk, you know full well what the potential risk are. Throwing him in jail to await bail is really quite silly.

Originally posted by MrWendal
The raw sewage, chances are it was done by another inmate. Eventually people do snap and do stupid things in jail as a way to draw attention or get moved.

He admits to being listed as being combative, so he was isolated. I believe that he even mentions that in his story. If his toilet backed up, he must have done it himself. That is why they didn't clean it up, or move him to a new cell, and told him to clean up his own mess. He most likely did it to get their attention.