Missouri Prison Reform received the following message from a resident of a Missouri Prison. Some edits were made for clarity.
I would like to advise inmates of their right to due process. This basically means that the authorities have to follow the rules and steps of the law before they sentence the inmate to punishment. On August 22, 2023 an inmate committed an armed assault on a female staff member. 99% of the inmates in the wing, me included, were angry about it and did not agree with what this single inmate attempted. This inmate was understandably removed from our wing (3-D) and general population here at JCCC. The following punishments were heaped on the remaining innocent 99% of the inmates left in 3-D:
1) The wing was placed on super max lockdown,no movement whatsoever.
2) Was fed 3 sack lunches per day containing 2 peanut butter sandwiches each.
3) Our tablets were turned off so no email or phone calls to our families.
4) No phone calls on the wing phones.
5) No laundry service for 2 weeks.
6) No showers.
7) Not allowed to report to work.
8) Not allowed to report to medical appointments.
9) The cert team came and destroyed every cell in the wing. I observed officers smashing TVs (I will not mention names but they were Sargent’s and Lt.s. They opened inmates’ food items and dumped in the floor. Complete destruction.).
The inmate who committed the assault on staff was not present but in ad-seg so the rest of the wing was punished for what he did. The legal course that staff violated was the inmates right to due process. Legally, before punishment is issued, staff must issue you a CDV, read you your Miranda rights, and provide you with a disciplinary hearing, find you innocent or guilty and then issue punishment or dismissal of the charges. They are legally not permitted to punish every other inmate for a crime another inmate committed. The only thing that will stop these heinous acts by staff is to file IRR’s and request the grievance appeal be seen by the Citizen’s committee and central office and copies of these grievances sent to your state representatives. This information and security camera footage must be brought before central office and other authority figures. This unlawful punishment by staff must cease. We must work to improve the respect and relationships between staff and inmates and to stop the hate.
In 2017, at BCC, officers woke me up in the middle of the night. Notwithstanding the sleep deprivation caused by these regular actions by MODOC I assume it was for a UA, which is normally around 1 am or later. , BCC Lt. told me to turn around and cuff up. No explanation as to why, just cuff up. I asked the Lt, why am I being restrained and for what reason? I go home in a couple of weeks, I know I aint did anything. The Lt just started macing me. Then six guards started attacking me, trying to choke me, attempted to hog tie me and I fought them off without throwing a single punch. Once the scuffle was over, I grabbed Lt. Franklin wrist told him to get his boys back, cuff me and take me to the hole before somebody gets hurt. I was placed in solitary confinement, covered in mace, denied a shower for 3 days.
After being in the hole, I was informed of my conduct violation, rule nineteen creating a disturbance- moaning and grunting in a sexual nature while I was sleep. A few days later I got an additional conduct violation rule two assault. No victim was listed. I filed a grievance asking how can I have an assault with no victim? BCC eventually dropped the conduct violation down to a rule ten, minor assault, but still no victim listed. I later find out that one of the officers who jumped on me blew out his knee during the malee, hence the reason BCC created the CDV. They just planned on assaulting me but one of their guards got hurt, so they wrote a CDV to cover his workmen’s comp.
I lost my release date behind this