Context: On Tuesday, April 28, the Board of Supervisors was scheduled to vote on Sheriff Ahern and Healthcare Director Chawla’s $318 million jail spending proposal. While the budget item was ultimately postponed due to a loss in Supervisor Valle’s family, tension and expectations were running high as the week began. Prisoners in the jail’s Housing Unit 6D have spoken out against the proposal, saying “More deputies – for what?…where’s the alcohol sanitizing wipes we’re supposed to be getting every day? The stuff we’re supposed to get – we aren’t getting it.” Some prisoners are now experiencing retaliation for providing an honest assessment of their situation, and for speaking their minds regarding the budget item.
If you or someone you know has experienced similar retaliation, please get in touch. Santa Rita Jail Solidarity can document the incident and/or contact their appointed attorney.
At 8:52AM on Tuesday morning, during pod time, an individual was speaking to other prisoners about the Sheriff’s proposed budget increase and his opposition to it. ACSO Deputy Perry approached them and said, “Man, cut it out! Why y’all hating on my money?” The deputy then grabbed his nightstick and began swinging it around, instructing the whole pod to “lock the hell down” and telling everyone to get in their cells and stay there. The prisoner who initiated a conversation about the budget item was singled out and questioned. Deputy Perry threatened to search the whole pod, confiscate prisoners’ tablets, and to charge the individual with “inciting a riot.” The individual was then locked in his cell without access to recreation time until the following day, when a new shift of deputies took over.
At 8:52AM on Tuesday morning, during pod time, an individual was speaking to other prisoners about the Sheriff’s proposed budget increase and his opposition to it. ACSO Deputy Perry approached them and said, “Man, cut it out! Why y’all hating on my money?” The deputy then grabbed his nightstick and began swinging it around, instructing the whole pod to “lock the hell down” and telling everyone to get in their cells and stay there.
The prisoner who experienced retaliation reports that he is now allowed to leave his cell, but that he is shaken; saying, ““I thought everybody had a right to free speech.” He would also like the community to know that he believes that more armed deputies will not solve either deficiencies in the jail or the underlying issues which result in incarceration. “People experience mental, physical, and sexual abuse before they end up in these systems,” he says. “There should be counseling and advice for people who are dealing with those issues….there’s a lot of people in custody who are feeling lost because they’re dealing with so much that they’ve bottled up inside…Anger is the first thing that a person expresses if they don’t know how to deal with their emotions. And anger leads to trouble.”