Correctional Staffs Disregard for life & Warnings Ignored With Cell Incompatibility Leads To Lethal Consequences At Virginia Sussex 1 State Prison

IS A PRISONER WRONG FOR DEFENDING HIMSELF WHEN THE VADOC WOULDN'T?

Reference: Everett Byrd #1632329
Cell incompatibility

*UPDATE*

December 19, 2018

Negligence of Sussex 1 State Prison 

I was housed in 2A27, with a man who was completely incompatible with me. We went to all the people with power asking to be separated. We filed paperwork and did face to face begging.

I pointed out the facts to Staff ~ say we were incompatible. Age, Race, time are [is] the main grounds! They were ignored. I told Sgt. Evans, I feared for my life her response was "go to the cell."

On January 11, 2018 My celli and I got physical and the altercation ended tragically! No weapons were used!

The [Virginia] Department of Corrections failed yet again to protect and serve leading to the death of yet another man! And putting the other on long-term segregation [Solitary Confienment]

Am I wrong for defending myself when DOC wouldn't?

Everett Byrd 

22years old

Dear People:
Please be informed this is another case of Institutional Staff unprofessional behavior that has resulted in another inmate losing his life and another one, the one referenced may end up with a charge of murder.

As this inmate explains he was put in a cell mistakenly and was promised he would be moved. He was not and after being in the cell a few days the problems started between him and his celli. He did many things to halt the coming altercation but no one helped him. He spoke with Lieutenants and other staff asking them all to move him out. He called home and spoke with his grandmother about it. He even got other inmates to sign a written petition detailing his need to be removed from the cell and they didn't pay him any attention.

After he and his celli began to fight at least two officers were on another pod and knew they were fighting and did not come to stop it. Inmate Byrd says they fought for 2 hours without a weapon and yet after the fight the other inmate later died.

This is a very tragic matter and the Staff is to blame for the inmate's death. They should be terminated. Someone besides inmate Byrd should be held responsible and should receive all repercussions.
Shaheed Omar

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*UPDATE* Everett has since been transferred to Red Onion State Prison

Everett Byrd is imprisoned in Virginia's prison system, serving his sentence at this time in Red Onion State Prison Write to him and show him support. His address is: 

Everett Byrd #1632329

Red Onion StatePrison

P.O. Box 1900

Pound, Virginia 24279

By Everett Byrd & In Collaboration with Shaheed Omar

Virginia Prisons Accountability Committee

PRACTICE OF STARVING VIRGINIA PRISONERS BY i.e RED ONION STATE PRISON, CATHOLIC USE OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT and OTHER EXTRA-JUDICIAL PRACTICES CONTRIBUTE TO PRISONERS CHRONIC MEDICAL CONDITIONS BY WILLIAM THORPE

If the General Assembly's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission is concerned with the rising cost of medical care for prisoners the within Virginia Prison system and it's Department of Corrections then the primary locus and orientation should be on prevention, styming causes that are within the Virginia Department of Corrections control, which the department already has a constitutional obligation to do. Under the United States Constitution 8th Amendment and Virginia Constitution Article 1 section 9 prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

" The Eighth Amendment prohibits the infliction of "cruel and unusual punishment," U.S. Const. Amend. VIII, this prohibition proscribes more than physical barbarous punishment. It also encompasses the treatment a prisoner receives in prison and the conditions under which he is confined. In particular, the Eighth Amendment imposes a duty on prison officials to provide humane conditions of confinement and ensure that inmates receive adequate food, clothing, shelter and medical care."  

See Estelle v. Gamble 429 U.S. 97 [1993] 

Helling v. McKinney 509 U.S. 25 [1993]

Farmer v. Brennan 511 U.S. 825 [1994]

Starving prisoners, Use of Solitary Confinement are also causes of prisoner chronic medical conditions.

A recent report by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission presents an idealistic and one-dimensional conclusion that totally ignores that the very nature of how the Virginia Department of Corrections performs its duties, practically unaccountable to the Virginia taxpayer is a primary cause of chronic health issues among the prisoner population.

So for starters, if the food service departments of the various prisons i.e. Red Onion State Prison would obey the U.S. Constitution 8th Amend. requirement of providing prisoners with adequate food and comply with the Departments Master Menu and its provisions and stop starving prisoners, by using food as an ad-hoc extrajudicial punishment. Prisoners would be relatively healthy enough with a fortified immune system to resist levels of ailments that are currently precipitating and necessitating, heightened medical care of Virginia prisoners and its costs. 

Secondly, medicine has long determined that stress causes trauma which induces all sorts of chronic and extreme medical conditions and health problems and what is more stressful than the solitary confinement aspect of prison? Yes, despite this medical fact which the Virginia Prison officials have the professional responsibility and constitutional obligation of knowing and not violating.

The Virginia prison officials i.e. The Red Onion State Prison official has reduced the metric of their administration philosophy and its practice to crude but novel ways of confining prisoners in solitary despite contrary assertions and espousals of reform of the practice. So prisoners at Red Onion State Prison are confined in solitary, in conditions that cause hypertension, cardiac disease, atrophication, respiratory conditions due to the indiscriminate and violative use of OC Gas and spray inside the closed confines of cells.

"it has long been established that prison officials violate the Eighth Amendment by using "mace, tear gas or other chemical agents in quantities greater than necessary or for the sole purpose of infliction of pain."

See: Williams v. Benjamin 77 F. 33d 756 [4th Cir. 1996]

Thirdly, if the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission finds the Department of Corrections mental health care prohibitive. A more practical and objective finding would have been, that the totality of practices of prisons i.e. Red Onion State Prison is contributive to the prevalence of chronic medical conditions and mental health issues among the prisoner population. Study in point prisoners is not sentenced to commit suicide in prison. Yet, Red Onion State Prison has had suicides which Virginias Government hasn't for all practical purpose investigated.

So if the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission is being objective and not performing another bureaucratic pro forma study that only highlights a conventional colloquialism. Then it should do what the medical and mental health community have consensus on: Preventative care and that will require a comprehensive critique of the Virginia Department of Corrections philosophy.

William Thorpe is in Solitary Confinement at Red Onion State Prison since 1998

Reference

 JLARC | Spending on Inmate Healthcare

IS IT APPROPRIATE FOR A VIRGINIA PRISON TO ASK IF ONE ATTENDS RELIGIOUS SERVICES DURING PRISONERS EVALUATION

Why is a Virginia Prison, a Government entity using religion in the evaluation of prisoners clearly in violation of Separation of State & Religion?

By vapac

WHO CARES IF WE SUFFER FROM POOR NUTRITION WRITTEN BY CHANELLE BURNETTE VIRGINIA FLUVANNA WOMEN'S CORRECTIONAL CENTER

"If at every doctor's appointment we are told that we are overweight and need to lose some, how are we to do such with what we are given to work with?

For each of the meals provided daily, the portion of starch is undeniably the largest! Lose weight? Caloric intake seems to simply be a number to abide by, even though the serving sizes are misproportioned. They just slap something on the tray for the sake of the job! Just to say "hey we fed them today"

Even though the vegetables were dirty and rotten...even though the fruit had been frozen, thawed and served because it was bought in excess.."hey we fed them today." Even though the staff is provided with bottled water and we drink the contaminated water and contract H.Pylori, "hey, at least we [prisoner] have water to drink."

What about the essential vitamins and nutrients necessary for good health? What about Vitamin C to fight off germs in a medical facility? Why all the processed meat that we don't eat go to waste? Why, when people are starving out there and it would be so simple and much more cost effective to serve things like tuna salad or egg salad?

What about the vegans and vegetarians? How many beans must they eat? How about more leafy, green vegetables for those of us whom are iron deficient and are forced to purchase a multivitamin from the commissary which contains no iron?

And what about Keefe Commissary Network that has once again raised prices to ridiculous amounts yet provide nothing healthy? They continue to rip us off for billions of dollars annually and people are still dying in a medical facility because we cannot even at least eat right to maintain our own good health!

So...Between Keefe and our own chow hall which is secretly interconnected, who cares if we suffer poor nutrition? As long as the rich get richer, who really cares?"

Written By Chanell Burnette

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chanell Burnette is currently a prisoner at Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women, she is a member of  Virginia Prisons Accountability Committee, Virginia Prisoner of Conscience as well as Coalition for Justice, She has expressed she is highly appreciative for any platform where "I am able to stand on and allow my voice to be heard, we all need an outlet to express ourselves from behind these walls"  we at "vapac" are giving her "her" platform, thank Ms. Burnette for sharing her story and  for being the first Women's submission.. 

Further Reading 

• To lower prison health costs, Maryland serve healthy food - The Washington Post
• VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS MONOPOLY WITH KEEFE COMPANY & PRAYER OIL

VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS MONOPOLY WITH KEEFE COMPANY & PRAYER OIL

For all of you out there who were under the illusion and delusion of what's the driving motive force of prison. The below should easily shake you out of it. The driving force is as everything else in life  MONEY. The state of Virginia and it's VADOC has a monopoly contract with the Keefe Company and not even the U.S. 1st amendment prohibition against state interference in religion hinders it. So you see Prison Policy Reflected.




By vapac