I first arrived at the Santa Rita jail five years ago. Last November, I was taken to the isolation unit. I have been here ever since and it seems I will stay here indefinitely. Sometime around the end of April or beginning of May, a deputy by the name of Rocha was in the isolation unit and was not wearing a mask. He was coughing a lot and this concerned me, so I asked why he was not wearing his mask. Rocha responded that he had been choking on a lifesaver candy and that he was not sick. He continued walking by other cells, coughing.
About two or three days after I was exposed to Rocha, I began to feel sick. I was coughing and had trouble breathing. It felt like a bad cold, but I wasn’t sure. I talked to a nurse and expressed my concerns and told her I wanted a test. She told me that COVID-19 tests were expensive and that the best they could do was take my temperature. She gave me some Motrin and allergy medicine, but that was all I was offered. This was extremely frustrating and it couldn’t be more obvious that the jail was just downplaying the seriousness of the virus and the whole pandemic. We weren’t even given masks until two months after the pandemic started. I was sick for about three weeks. Last week, I saw Rocha was in the intensive care unit of the hospital due to COVID-19. He had been prancing around the entire jail, with no PPE or any precautions, and was exposing the entire jail all while denying he was sick. Who knows who else he infected – especially when the jail covers his tracks by refusing us tests.
Last week, I saw Rocha was in the intensive care unit of the hospital due to COVID-19. He had been prancing around the entire jail, with no PPE or any precautions, and was exposing the entire jail all while denying he was sick. Who knows who else he infected – especially when the jail covers his tracks by refusing us tests.
And even without the COVID-19 concerns, the jail treats us terribly. Our meals are beyond inhumane. The food we are given is always old, overcooked, and most of the time is literally unidentifiable to the point that we have no idea what we are eating. I heard from someone that works in the kitchen that the packages that the food comes in have “Not for Human Consumption” written on it. It seems pretty obvious that whatever we are eating is not healthy and probably doesn’t have any nutritional value. On top of that, the portions are tiny – barely enough for a baby. I think it’s a clear scheme. They keep us hungry so that we have no choice but to buy food. But the jail cranks prices absurdly high. A single pack of top ramen costs $1.50 and a tiny bag of off-brand chips costs $2.00. Most of us don’t have families that can afford to send us money, so we don’t have the means to buy any and we stay hungry.
They act like we are animals. We are all losing our minds crammed in our tiny cells for 23 hours a day, as if they are cages. We have only one hour a day that we can leave. The rest of the time we are stuck. It is torture. Now with COVID-19 on top of everything, we are being given death sentences. All this, without even being proven guilty.
These conditions make it obvious that we are being punished. I have not even been convicted of anything, yet the jail treats us all like we are guilty. Guilty until proven innocent. They act like we are animals. We are all losing our minds crammed in our tiny cells for 23 hours a day, as if they are cages. We have only one hour a day that we can leave. The rest of the time we are stuck. It is torture. Now with COVID-19 on top of everything, we are being given death sentences. All this, without even being proven guilty.