PA Prison Report - November 21, 2011

 

  

In this edition: Prisoner finds razorblades in his food after filing grievances against guards, Six more guards arrested in SCI Pittsburgh abuse round up, Former hunger strikers in California prisons commit suicide, and more…

 

 

Racism and retaliation lead to razor blades being placed in prisoner’s food: Braheem Grant, a prisoner at SCI- Coal Township, has reported several instances of physical and verbal abuse. Grant has been in the Restricted Housing Unit (RHU) for 120 days for a misconduct he claims was falsified.

 

On July 21, prison guard Lynn verbally abused Grant and subsequently denied him a dinner tray, then filed a misconduct when Grant told him he was reporting the incident. The next day, Lynn taped a “Restricted Movement” sign on Grant’s cell door, which prevented him from taking a shower, yard, shave, or any movement outside of his cell for seven days. A few hours later, Lynn approached Grant’s cell and stated: “Do you see how this thing could work? I could make it very difficult for the remainder of your stay. Don’t f—k around with me.” Grant filed two grievances against Lynn concerning these events.

 

On August 2, a Hearing Examiner dismissed Lynn’s misconduct against Grant, although Lynn was given the chance to rewrite it, which he refused. On his way back from his hearing, Grant was allowed to get some of his magazines, which had been accidently misplaced. He was being escorted by a Lieutenant Symone, who told Grant that since Lynn didn’t rewrite the misconduct, he should withdraw his two grievances, but Grant said no. “I just did your nigger ass a favor when I didn’t have to,” responded Symone referring to allowing him to get his magazines. “Now sign off on the grievances or you’ll regret it.”

 

Over the next month and a half, Grant continued to be a target of abuse. He filed a grievance against prison guard Kinney for stealing another prisoner’s legal work, and reported threats by prison guard Saltzman. He also continued to be the target of racial slurs. On September 15, during dinner meal time, Grant accepted his tray. Writes Grant: “I stepped up to get mine and Officer Kinney said ‘enjoy your meal,’ then he flashed me a quick smile. I began to eat then felt a sharp pain in my mouth. I spit my food out on the meal tray and saw it had blood in it. I then felt a burning sensation.” Grant was escorted to medical and it was later revealed to him that there had been razors in his food. On September 27, Grant had an interview with a security lieutenant who told Grant that he must have put the razors in the food himself. Grant filed a grievance, but it was denied.

 

 

Nooses reportedly placed in solitary confinement cell at SCI Huntingdon: Human rights defender and jailhouse lawyer Damont Hagan was placed in a cell containing “makeshift nooses” earlier this month according to a report sent on to the Human Rights Coalition by another prisoner in the restricted housing unit. The nooses were alleged to have been placed there by prison guards McDermott and Knause. Hagan has also been held in a psychiatric observation cell, which is routine procedure within the state prison system when people subject to long-term solitary confinement and abusive conditions are in need of mental health treatment. Prisoners in observation cells are prevented from sending letters or making phone calls, and are thus totally isolated from the outside world.

 

Another report received from Huntingdon indicates that Hagan was assaulted by McDermott and Knause on November 8 and his personal property was taken from him. Hagan has ongoing lawsuits against Department of Corrections officials. Both reports were written on November 9. A call to SCI Huntingdon by a human rights advocate confirmed that Hagan was in a psychiatric observation cell, but the prison would release no further information.

 

Damont Hagan has been held in solitary confinement for most of the last decade and has earned a reputation at several prisoners for being a jailhouse lawyer and human rights defender. He was sent to Huntingdon in May after witnessing guards in the solitary confinement unit at the State Correctional Institution Cresson encouraged John McClellan to commit suicide. Hagan was transferred within days of McClellan’s suicide.

 

 

6 More arrested in Abu Ghraib on the Allegheny scandal: The District Attorney of Allegheny County and the Department of Corrections filed charges this week against six guards employed at SCI Pittsburgh, for assault, official oppression, conspiracy and terroristic threats. The charges are part of a larger grand jury investigation that has led to the firing of 8 administrators and 92 counts of abuse against guard, Harry Nicoletti. The following are summaries of the six criminal complaints filed with the police last week on behalf of the commonwealth:

 

Sean Thomas Storey of Mount Washington surrendered November 15 on charges following a grand jury investigation into the physical and sexual abuse of prisoners at State Correction Institution Pittsburgh. Storey was first named in connection to the charges against Harry Nicoletti by Inmate Casey Oliver, who witnessed the sexual and physical abuse at SCI Pittsburgh, and was also ordered to contaminate the food of the targeted prisoners on a daily basis.

 

During the course of the investigation, prisoner Michael Beck was interviewed. Beck was convicted of a sexual offense with a female under the age of sixteen. Beck reported that he was assaulted on two occasions by prison guards. These assaults consisted of slaps to the face, body punches, and having his head flushed down the toilet. On one occasion, a guard came to his cell and harassed him for his crime. When Beck responded, he reported that the guard entered his cell, pushed him into his sink and punched him in the chest with both fists, while verbally threatening him. During the interview, Beck identified Storey out of a photo lineup as possibly the guard that assaulted him. In another interview, Beck’s abuser was confirmed as Storey by Casey Oliver. Oliver said he observed Storey take his shirt off, go into the cell, and come out sweating with some blood on him, matching the incident described by Beck.

 

Jerome Lynch of the Northside of Pittsburgh surrendered on November 15 on charges following the grand jury investigation of sexual and physical assault taking place late last year at SCI Pittsburgh. Lynch was charged with five counts of official oppression, two counts of simple assault, three counts of conspiracy, two counts of intimidation of witnesses, one count of criminal solicitation, and one count terroristic threats. In the affidavit of the criminal investigator in charge of the grand jury investigation several inmate accounts described Lynch accompanying prison guard Harry Nicoletti to verbally, sexually, and physically assault prisoners on the F block of SCI Pittsburgh over the course of two years. The affidavit includes accounts of Lynch ordering prisoners to steal from other prisoners and deprive them of food, and bribing inmates interviewed by the criminal investigators.

 

One of the prisoners interviewed by the criminal investigator was William Zuschlag, who gave an account of Lynch being led into his cell by fellow guard Kelly, who told him to, “do what you have to do.” Kelly had repeatedly verbally and physically harassed Zuschlag since he arrived on the block. After Kelly left, Lynch proceeded to punch, kick, and choke Zuschlag while threatening to kill him and give him a “lead enema”.

Tory D. Kelly of Aliquippa, PA was charged with multiple counts of assault, causing bodily injury, official oppression, and terrorizing prisoners at SCI-Pittsburgh last week. He was also charged with conspiring with Harry Nicoletti, Kevin Freiss, and Jerome Lynch to commit these crimes. Prisoners Turner, Zuschlag, Jones, Friend, Frederick, Walters, Shoemaker, and Vanwy all swore affidavits that they were assaulted by Tory Kelly, most of them on a regular basis. Multiple witnesses testified they frequently saw Kelly enter into targeted prisoners’ cells with no shirt, wearing black leather, fingerless gloves, and come out sweaty and splattered with blood. He reportedly assaulted some prisoners on a daily basis, sometimes twice a day. He frequently threatened to kill his victims, and was reported to say “If you say anything to anybody about this, I’ll splatter your blood all over your cell” to several of his victims.

 

Prisoner Zuschlag stated on his third day on F block, Kelly entered his cell while an unidentified guard stayed outside the cell acting as a lookout. Kelly punched him in the side of the head, threw him against the wall then to the floor. He then pulled Zuschlag to his feet and punched him in the ribs and smacked him several times. Kelly hit Zuschlag approximately a dozen times. Kelly wore the usual black leather, fingerless gloves, and threatened further physical violence if Zuschlag told anyone about the incident. Kelly came to his cell to assault him twice a day on most days, and usually had a lookout. The lookout was usually Freiss. This account is very similar to all of his victims’ accounts.

 

Tory Kelly didn’t only target sex offenders for abuse. Frederick is a Caucasian drug offender. He was choked by prison guard Freiss sometime between late December 2010 and early January 2011 after he was seen passing a cigarette to a black prisoner who was held in an isolation cell for new inmates. Nicoletti then entered his cell and threatened to beat Frederick’s face in with a pair of handcuffs because he “shared a cigarette with a n-word.” Later, Frederick was called to the control bubble by Nicoletti. When inmate Frederick reached the doorway, Kelly grabbed him by the back of his neck and started squeezing hard. Kelly said, “I can break his f-ing neck right now if you want me to.” Nicoletti said, “Don’t do that.” Frederick was then sent back to his cell after the guards were done talking to him. Nicoletti, Freiss, and Kelly are all Caucasian males.

 

Kevin Friess, a thirty-one-year-old white male was arrested on 20 counts for his role in abusing prisoners at SCI Pittsburgh. He was charged with six counts of simple assault; seven counts of official oppression, six counts of criminal conspiracy; and one count of intimidation of a witness. The criminal complaint asserts that Friess perpetrated simple assault against Thomas Frederick, Steven Friend, Jessy Newsome, James Turner, Randy Jones, and Melvin Nicklow. Simple assault is attempting to cause or intentionally, knowingly or recklessly causing bodily injury, or attempting to physically menace a person by putting them in fear of imminent bodily injury. The complaint does not provide specifics as to the role of Friess in committing these acts, though he is alleged to have conspired with Harry Nicolleti to abuse prisoners and suppress facts of the abuse.

 

On December 1, 2010 Jerry Newsome was brought into SCI Pittsburgh’s receiving and intake block where he was housed for 7 days. Newsome informed investigators that as soon as he got on the block Guard Nicoletti began harrassing him, asking him what crime he had been accused of, and slapping him across the face. Another prisoner on the block witnessed two guards, one identified by Newsome as Nicoletti, and one later identified by Newsome as Bruce Lowther, remove Newsome’s cellmate from his cell, so that they could shove his head into the toilet. Newsome told investigators that Bruce Lowther held his head down in the toilet for 40 seconds and then flushed it. Following the incident, Newsome was asked by guards why his head was put in the toilet and he responded, “Because I was ordered to.” Guards then informed Newsome that this was the wrong answer, and he should respond to their question of why he put his head in the toilet with, “Because I am a worthless piece of shit.” Later that week, Newsome passed guard Bruce Lowther while walking with another prisoner. Lowther asked Newsome why he put his head in the toilet, if he was scared, and informed him that once he was transferred, “They will f—k you up at Camp Hill.”

 

The police complaint of probable cause to arrest Bruce Lowther was based on Lowther being assigned to the specific duties and time shifts that Jerry Newsome was on the intake block and additional statements from eye witnesses. Prisoners who worked on the block informed investigators that they were recruited by many guards, including Lowther, to harrass, assault, and contaminate the food of new prisoners on a regular basis. Lowther is being charged with simple assault and participating in illegal activity in an official capacity as a correctional officer.

 

Brian Olinger, 32, is also among the correctional officers who were charged with physical and sexual crimes against prisoners at SCI-Pittsburgh. Although Olinger was not charged with assault, in the criminal complaint written by investigators, it was documented that Olinger did engage in perverse acts. Prisoner Casey Oliver, who worked on F Block from March 2009 through February 2011, reported that Olinger urinated and possibly defecated on mentally challenged prisoner Kenneth Vanwy’s bed, covered it with a sheet, and forced Vanwy to lie down on the bed. In a separate incident, prisoner Patrick Hogan witnessed Olinger enter Vanwy’s cell. After leaving the cell, Olinger admitted to Hogan that he had urinated on Vanwy’s mattress.

 

Business as Usual: The six prison guards who surrendered last week have been charged due to their participation in a two year long reign of terror led by Harry Nicoletti, who had 92 counts brought against him two months ago for raping and abusing prisoners. Though the accounts in the affidavits from this criminal investigation are gruesome, the Human Rights Coalition has received accounts from across Pennsylvania that show that the acts carried out by these officers are only slight extremes of business as usual in the Department of Corrections. Racism, sexual violence, physical and psychological abuse, and the warehousing of prisoners in long-term solitary confinement are all features of a pervasive pattern of torture and human rights violations occurring throughout PA prisons.

 

 

Three California prison hunger strike participants commit suicide: In the month since the second phase of a massive prisoner hunger strike in California ended on September 22nd, three prisoners who had been on strike have committed suicide. Johnny Owens Vick and another prisoner were both confined in the Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit. Hozel Alanzo Blanchard was confined in the Calipatria Administrative Segregation Unit (ASU).

 

According to reports from prisoners who were housed in surrounding cells and who witnessed the deaths, guards did not come to the assistance of one of the prisoners at Pelican Bay or to Blanchard, and in the case of the Pelican Bay prisoner (whose name is being withheld for the moment), guards deliberately ignored his cries for help for several hours before finally going to his cell, at which point he was already dead. “It is completely despicable that prison officials would willfully allow someone to take their own life,” said Dorsey Nunn, Executive Director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, “These guys were calling for help, their fellow prisoners were calling for help, and guards literally stood by and watched it happen.”

 

Philly area: Wednesdays are Write On! Prison Letter Writing Night at the LAVA space at 4134 Lancaster, 6-9 pm. Come help us stay connected with the many prisoners who write to us with news from inside, learn to document crimes committed by prison staff, and help bring an end to the abuse and torture of our brothers and sisters behind bars.

 

If you’d like to know more about the Human Rights Coalition or would like to get involved, come to Write On!, to our monthly general meetings (second Monday of each month, 6pm), or call us at 215-921-3491, email: info@hrcoalition.org, or visit our website at http://www.hrcoalition.org./

 

Pittsburgh area: Write On! – Letter writing to prisoners and HRC work night every Wednesday at 5129 Penn Avenue from 7 -10pm. To get involved with HRC/Fed Up! in Pittsburgh, email: hrcfedup@gmail.com or call 412-654-9070.

 

You’ve been listening to the Human Rights Coalition’s PA Prison Report. HRC is a group of current and former prisoners, family members, and supporters, whose ultimate goal is to abolish prisons.