Marcos Santiago heard the clatter of metallic chains outdoors cell 201 subsequent door. Locked in probably the most remoted unit at Lee federal jail in western Virginia, he knew that sound meant officers had been readying to shackle one other man to a concrete slab and depart him there for hours — as that they had achieved to him weeks prior. Santiago was left with open wounds from the restraints on his ankles, and the sharp ache of a damaged rib.
Over almost 24 hours on July 4, 2022, Santiago heard muffled thuds and screams from the adjoining cell. It appeared like guards had been following the identical playbook he stated they’d used on him: beating him in his torso with their fists, slamming their riot shields into his physique and twisting his fingers and ft. In between guards’ visits, Santiago talked to the person via the air vents of their cells.
Santiago requested for his title and jail register quantity, and tried to distract him from the searing ache in his limbs. Not lengthy after that prisoner was moved out, one other particular person was taken to cell 201 — a youthful man from Puerto Rico, who requested Santiago to name his mom and inform her what occurred to him.
Santiago wrote down his title and quantity too — in code, in case officers discovered his notes. All through the summer time of 2022, even after he returned to the overall jail inhabitants, Santiago stored gathering names of people that stated that they had been shackled and overwhelmed, and those that had heard their screams.
Collectively, their accounts describe a pervasive tradition of racism and violence within the jail’s Particular Housing Unit, a separate tier the place individuals are locked down for almost 24 hours a day. Quite a few lawsuits examined by The Marshall Venture and NPR allege that officers smashed incarcerated folks’s faces into concrete partitions and broke their enamel, floor down their ft and legs with steel-toed boots, kicked and groped their testicles, and lower off their dreadlocks and ripped off their beards. One man now requires using a wheelchair on account of abuse at Lee, his lawsuit stated.
“Once I take into consideration what they did to me it simply fills me with rage,” Santiago stated in a cellphone name from a unique federal penitentiary, in California. He sued federal jail officers in January 2023. “I’ve been in jail for 22 years now. There’s abuse in each jail, however I’ve by no means witnessed something like Lee.”
In an e-mail, Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Emery Nelson stated the company “doesn’t touch upon anecdotal accusations,” situations of confinement for any particular person or ongoing lawsuits. He stated workers could also be prosecuted if they’re discovered to make use of brutality or bodily violence. “The overwhelming majority of our workers are hardworking, moral, diligent corrections professionals, and need these partaking in misconduct held accountable,” he wrote.
The president of the American Federation of Authorities Staff Native 1405, which represents officers at Lee, didn’t remark for this story.
The Marshall Venture reviewed 17 federal lawsuits filed within the final 5 years and spoke with over two dozen folks with data of Lee. 9 of these fits, together with Santiago’s, had been filed with the assistance of the Washington Attorneys’ Committee for Civil Rights and City Affairs, a D.C.-based authorized nonprofit, and D.C.-based legislation agency Gilbert LLP.
The violence on the jail has continued regardless of federal officers’ vow to crack down on mistreatment throughout all Bureau of Prisons amenities, legal professionals representing the prisoners stated.
The identical summer time Santiago and others ended up in shackles, the bureau appointed a reform-minded director, Colette Peters. In testimony earlier than the Home Judiciary Committee this July, Peters reiterated her dedication to “tackle worker misconduct” and enhance assets to analyze abuse.
The complaints at Lee mirror accounts from what was then a federal penitentiary, USP Thomson in Illinois, particularly the overuse of four-point restraints. After a 2022 investigation by The Marshall Venture and NPR uncovered vital abuse and violence in Thomson’s Particular Administration Unit, the bureau closed that unit in February 2023. The inspector normal for the Justice Division is at the moment investigating using restraints throughout all federal prisons.
An envelope of a letter from Marcos Santiago to his sister, Jackie Gutierrez, after he was transferred out of Lee. A handwritten letter from Santiago to his sister about his expertise at USP Lee. A typed letter to Sen. Tim Kaine from Santiago.
Abuse at Lee “shouldn’t be a well-kept secret,” stated Kristin McGough, who beforehand ran the prisoners’ rights crew on the Washington Attorneys’ Committee. “They’ve a protocol,” she stated of the officers within the Particular Housing Unit. “There’s no actual try to cover what they’re doing. If something, issues are getting worse.”
Bureau coverage says restraints are for use as a final resort to achieve management of somebody who’s a menace to themselves, others or authorities property. The coverage additionally dictates that “an worker could not use brutality, bodily violence, or intimidation towards inmates, or use any power past that which is fairly essential to subdue an inmate.”
However contained in the Particular Housing Unit at Lee, officers appeared to comply with a sample that violated these insurance policies, in keeping with dozens of testimonies and the lawsuits. Individuals had been walked backward and bent over on the waist right into a cell and wearing paper garments. In the previous few years, many stated they had been additionally given a helmet earlier than the assault started. Then they had been cuffed on the wrists and ankles and chained on the waist, and made to kneel on the cement ground going through the wall whereas officers beat them with their fists and shields. Some had been additionally put in four-point restraints, the place each limb was chained to a concrete slab.
In response to Nelson, the bureau spokesperson, prisoners could also be given protecting headgear “for his or her safety solely.” Paper clothes should be accepted in writing by a warden, he wrote, and needs to be issued solely when a prisoner makes use of common clothes in a method that “poses a menace.”
Former prisoners at Lee stated it was troublesome to talk out in regards to the abuse whereas they had been there, as they felt a continuing menace of retaliation from guards. Officers usually refused to supply them with grievance types, or deliberately delayed or misplaced their paperwork, reducing them off from their solely actual likelihood at recourse, in keeping with lawsuits. A number of folks stated they had been solely given a pencil in solitary confinement, however the types needed to be stuffed out in pen.
Below federal legislation, prisoners can’t sue the bureau with out first going via every step of the jail’s treatment course of, beginning with submitting a grievance. That creates one other authorized hurdle for plaintiffs, who need to show they had been denied entry to the grievance system on high of their different claims.
Santiago believes it was his try to file grievances and sue over different points that made him a goal for abuse within the first place. In an incident report, officers wrote that he was moved to the Particular Housing Unit after refusing to return to his housing unit, and that he was put in restraints for violently resisting. Santiago denies this.
He stated officers tried in a number of methods to maintain him from making a paper path of what occurred. “They do all the pieces of their energy to dam you,” he stated. He started sending copies of each kind to his sister Jackie Gutierrez, in case officers destroyed his recordsdata.
In a movement to dismiss Santiago’s lawsuit, federal legal professionals representing jail employees wrote that “every of the Defendants deny the Amended Grievance’s severe and disturbing allegations.” They argued Santiago’s case didn’t comply with the jail’s administrative treatment course of. The courtroom has but to rule on their request.
Prisoners at Lee stated employees focused them for a wide range of causes. Some had been singled out due to intercourse offenses on their report, or in the event that they had been accused of masturbating in entrance of employees. However others stated they had been assaulted after extra innocuous encounters, like asking for medical assist or to see a psychologist.
After being denied his medicine, Ryan Amelia skilled a psychotic episode at Lee in August 2023. He hit the emergency misery button, prompting a battle along with his cellmate. In response to his lawsuit, that’s when officers pepper-sprayed him, pulled him out of his cell and took him to the Particular Housing Unit, the place he was locked in four-point restraints. Over the three days he was left chained to a concrete block, he went out and in of consciousness. Officers sporadically got here to slam him with their riot shields or break his toes, the grievance says.
When Amelia was lastly launched, there have been wounds on his wrists and ankles. His limbs had been so weak he couldn’t elevate his arms or stroll, forcing him to shuffle round his cell on his knees. Medical information present he began dropping pounds and an oozing ulcer, over an inch huge, opened on his left ankle.
Greater than two months after he was restrained, Amelia was hospitalized for extreme ache and a softball-sized bump that had developed on his hip. Docs found that the an infection in his ankle had led to septic arthritis in his joints, medical information present. Regardless of a number of surgical procedures, the an infection stays in his bone. He’ll must be on antibiotics for the remainder of his life and can by no means stroll on his personal once more, his lawsuit states.
“If it ever will get into my blood it can kill me,” Amelia stated of the an infection, in a cellphone name from a unique penitentiary. He wants his cellmate to assist him with duties akin to placing on his sneakers. He suffers fixed ache, and a physician has really useful he be transferred to a federal medical facility. “Due to what they did, and what they let go at Lee County, I gained’t ever be capable to get out of a wheelchair,” Amelia stated.
He filed his lawsuit in October. Attorneys for the Bureau of Prisons haven’t responded to the grievance.
“If any of us had been to do something near what they did, we’d be sitting in jail,” Amelia stated of the guards. “I wish to assume they’d be held accountable.”
The U.S. Penitentiary Lee sits in Appalachia, close to the Virginia borders with Tennessee and Kentucky. The close by city, Pennington Hole, has a inhabitants of about 1,600. Lee County is sort of 94% White.
The employees at Lee penitentiary is 98% White, in keeping with the bureau, and a number of folks stated that guards gave the impression to be particularly hostile to Black prisoners — who make up 62% of the jail’s inhabitants. “That was the one establishment I’ve been to the place the White employees don’t have an issue calling a Black dude a N-word,” stated Cinquan Umar Muhammad, who was at Lee from 2015 to 2019. Dentavia McNair stated officers lower off his dreadlocks and used the racial slur whereas kicking him and punching him within the face, as he was held in restraints in September 2023.
“Lee County was the worst,” stated McNair, who was launched from jail in October. “That’s an expertise I don’t need to see no person undergo. It’s traumatizing.”
Anthony Harrell was incarcerated at Lee in the summertime of 2020, as protests over George Floyd’s homicide exploded throughout the nation. In courtroom information and interviews, Harrell stated employees focused him after he pushed again on their choice to show off the televisions exhibiting information protection of the rising protests. As soon as he was led into the Particular Housing Unit, “They kicked me, punched me, known as me the N-word, stated, ‘Fuck George Floyd,’ ‘Fuck Black Lives Matter,’ ‘Are you able to breathe now?” Harrell stated. He was left in four-point restraints for almost 30 hours, he wrote in a lawsuit. “I questioned in the event that they had been going to kill me.”
Harrell sued quickly after, however the swimsuit was thrown out for not following the bureau’s administrative grievance course of. He was launched from jail in 2022. “I by no means felt hate in my life earlier than that day,” he stated of his time in restraints. “When you’ve guys you’re making an attempt to rehabilitate, you don’t lock them in a cage and kick them for years. That’s not making society safer.”
Nelson careworn that bureau coverage forbids officers from utilizing “profane, obscene or abusive language,” or performing in a method that’s “demeaning” to incarcerated folks.
Many of the violence occurred in areas with out cameras, prisoners stated, or in rooms the place the cameras had been coated up. Below bureau coverage, nurses are required to report video of their medical assessments of prisoners in restraints. However folks incarcerated at Lee stated they had been threatened by officers and advised to report “no accidents” on digicam when medical employees requested.
“They had been on a rampage that summer time, placing folks in four-points and beating their ass,” stated Bruce Altenburger, who was being held within the Particular Housing Unit from Could to December of 2022. He was held in restraints for almost 24 hours, he stated. “It felt like each night time you’ll hear a person in four-points screaming.”
A number of the abuse escalated to sexual assault, in keeping with lawsuits and interviews with incarcerated folks. Two males stated officers put fingers or mop handles of their anus whereas they had been within the Particular Housing Unit, in keeping with letters and authorized complaints. At the very least 10 folks stated their genitals had been groped or injured whereas restrained.
In response to Bureau of Prisons information, 5 official complaints had been filed at Lee below the federal Jail Rape Elimination Act from 2021 to 2023. The information don’t present particulars of the allegations. None had been substantiated.
Prisoners at Lee stated officers weren’t the one menace. Many stated workers ignored, and even deliberately stoked, violence between cellmates. 4 folks have died by murder at Lee within the final 5 years, in keeping with the state medical expert.
After Amelia was launched from restraints, he was overwhelmed by his cellmate for the following two weeks on the urging of officers, in keeping with Amelia’s lawsuit. The cellmate smothered him with “blankets, clothes, a sheet rope, and finally, his fingers,” till Amelia misplaced consciousness. The lawsuit says the person was given “extra privileges, akin to books and extra time on the cellphone, in trade for assaulting and torturing Mr. Amelia.”
Cathy Thompson was working within the bureau’s nationwide Psychology Providers department in 2022 when she began listening to regarding tales about Lee from different psychologists. Prisoners had been being transferred from Lee to different amenities, particularly Atlanta, and telling staffers about their mistreatment. Thompson deliberate a go to to Lee penitentiary to evaluation operations, particularly relating to accounts of sexual abuse. However weeks earlier than the journey was scheduled, officers canceled the go to.
“I feel [they] phrased it like, ‘Now’s not time,’” stated Thompson, who retired from the bureau final 12 months. “I used to be simply livid. As a result of what I had heard was so distressing. If 25% of the allegations had been true, if even one of many allegations had been true, it was an excessive amount of.”
Nelson, the bureau spokesperson, wouldn’t touch upon Thompson’s account. He wrote {that a} website go to was carried out at Lee in October 2023, however wouldn’t present additional element.
The situations described at Lee have continued for years, in keeping with the Washington, D.C.-based Corrections Data Council, a watchdog for prisons the place D.C. residents are held. The group issued a report in 2019 that discovered accounts “of employees violence had been many and diverse.”
Investigators wrote, “All through the ability, inmates the CIC spoke with expressed considerations a couple of tradition of violence extending to facility management, and together with employees each perpetrating and inspiring violence towards inmates.” Half of respondents stated that they had been “harassed, threatened or abused” by employees there. Many reported being afraid of retaliation in the event that they even spoke to investigators about situations.
Anthony Thomas was incarcerated at Lee in 2018 and labored as a custodian within the Particular Housing Unit. “You see blood. I needed to clear up urine and feces simply because they’d been in there so lengthy they usually gained’t allow you to use the toilet,” he stated of the prisoners who had been held in restraints. “In the event you’re crying, they’re gonna hold coming in and messing with you.”
In response to Nelson, prisoners in restraints needs to be given the chance to make use of the bathroom each two hours until the particular person is “persevering with to actively resist or turns into violent whereas being launched from the restraints.”
In a response to the D.C. group’s findings, a Justice Division official known as them “unsubstantiated allegations” primarily based on a “small proportion” of prisoners. The official reiterated bureau coverage on using power and famous that employees obtained yearly coaching on the problem.
The bureau up to date its use of power coverage this summer time, to specify that officers have an “affirmative responsibility to intervene” and cease or stop abuse, and that restraints might not be used “in a way that causes pointless bodily ache or excessive discomfort.” Anybody who makes use of extreme power may face prison prices, the coverage states.
Additionally this July, President Joe Biden signed a legislation that will create an impartial ombudsman to subject complaints from federal prisoners. The statute additionally requires common inspections of bureau prisons, particularly “larger threat” amenities.
All through Santiago’s time at Lee, he and his sister Jackie Gutierrez continued to collect tales of people that stated that they had been assaulted there. Gutierrez began calling their wives, moms and sisters. They each began writing to senators, representatives, judges and the NAACP. In whole, they gathered the names of greater than 50 individuals who had been incarcerated at Lee and stated that they had skilled or witnessed widespread abuse. Lots of these prisoners would go on to file lawsuits towards the bureau.
“I’m making an attempt to get assist re: the torture/abuse/beatings/threats at USP Lee,” Santiago wrote in a November 2022 letter to U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, who represents Virginia. “My life is at risk and I are not looking for my sister to need to plan my funeral.”
In an e-mail, a spokesperson for the senator stated they forwarded Santiago’s letter to the Bureau of Prisons.
After Santiago sued jail officers, he was transferred out of Lee and to Victorville penitentiary in Southern California two months later. One other man at Lee who had labored with Santiago continued amassing testimonies and dealing with the Washington Attorneys’ Committee.
McGough, the previous legal professional for the committee, hopes their lawsuits would possibly deliver an finish to the violence at Lee.
“Individuals simply need to serve their time in peace,” she stated. “No person is making an attempt to get out of jail, these people simply need this abuse to cease. There’s lasting trauma that no amount of cash on the earth can ever repay.”
