Alameda County District Attorney’s Office and Alameda County Sheriff’s Department is linked to human trafficking of human lives at Santa Rita Jail – it’s a business. You have tons of detainees housed at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, CA based on violations that have taken place from arresting agencies....meaning you will sit in custody for months or years while Alameda County makes money off of you.
I’m a 44-year-old African-American male. I was raised in North Oakland, CA – a low-income and a high-poverty neighborhood. I lived in a household with a single parent...Many African-American kids grow up with similar or same pain as me.
All these are violations and due process rights violations that most people of color are dealing with. Alameda County Public Defenders refuse to address these factors. That’s why we have hundreds of African-American detainees that’s been sitting in custody for a long period of time. Because we’ve already been failed badly by Alameda County Public Defender’s Office.
Ms. Nancy O’Malley you have over 2,000 inmates in custody at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, CA. You have a lot of detainees right now that suffer from these listed violations and most district attorneys are fully aware of that. Why haven’t those cases been resolved, dismissed, or fully tossed out?
Being reduced to animal-like treatment is what is jeopardizing public safety, not promoting it. Our issues become exacerbated and once again, the expensive system fails at its job, causing more harm and pain than it does good.
African-Americans are being targeted ...We are being human trafficked within this racial injustice system. We need the Governor of California to visit county jails like Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County. We need the law enforcement associations to re-train local law enforcement agencies’ investigation duties right now. We need Senators to address these issues now – do Black lives really matter?
We need help in Santa Rita, real bad, it's getting out of control, and we can't handle it no more. We just need help here. Please, somebody help us here at Santa Rita.
People of color and those that come from low poverty is being denied the Humphrey law. It will show, that’s why the inmate population is growing fast at Santa Rita Jail....it seems like nobody is being released. It’s 85% of African Americans that’s housed at Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County – the new form of modern day slavery.
When we filed grievances, the response is “resolved” because they have put sticky traps under the oven and vending machines. But, it doesn’t fix the reason the mice are here. The jail has not repaired the holes in the walls where the mice live.
Last week, for some reason, I got a stomach illness. I was throwing up, I was constipated, my stomach burned, and I could not eat for two days. I think it was related to something I ate. It’s hard to know if my stomach illness came from eating burnt food, or if it came from eating food that was contaminated.
In June, I missed 22 meals. In July, I missed 14 meals. Despite me submitting that grievance regarding missed meals back in mid-March 2020, the jail still often does not provide me with my meals, and does not provide me with replacement gluten free meals when my meal is missing.
Around January or February of 2020, when Aramark started changing the menu, reducing the food portions more, and leaving out more of the meal elements, and I started losing weight. I have lost almost 70 pounds between January and August 2020 (eight months). In August 2020, I weighed 180 pounds, which I haven’t weighed since I was 16 years old.
Later that day, I submitted a grievance about the metal in my oatmeal, but the response came back as “Resolved”, because I was “offered another tray.”
I was stirring my rice when I saw a cockroach in the rice. Its body was partially translucent and I could see its skeleton, it had cooked into the rice, but I could see the legs and the wings. Finding the cockroach in my rice made me feel sick. I threw up from eating that cockroach.
Especially now that we are getting our food on disposable trays, I see many unopened or barely touched trays going straight into the trash can. This speaks to the food’s safety issues and terrible quality because we are so hungry all the time – we wouldn’t just throw anything out without it being truly disgusting or threatening to our health.
When the trays aren’t cleaned properly, the food remnants that stick to the trays just keep getting cooked into the plastic of the trays more and more. When there are food remnants on the bottom or sides of the trays, this means my food is contaminated, which feels unsanitary and not safe to eat.
I have seen our Aramark supervisor, Margarita, pull unused trays out of the garbage to be used on the line again. This concerns me because I try to keep things as clean and sanitary as possible. Margarita sometimes sees rat poop sitting on top of the trays. I have seen her dust off rat poop with her bare hands. I have also seen Margarita pull bugs out of the food, with her hands.
For example, yesterday the vegetables were old and inedible. They have turned brown and black and become soggy, like when vegetables are forgotten in the fridge and turn into brown mush. Lately, the tuna fish has smelled bad, and I’m afraid to eat it. I don’t want to get food poisoning.
The food at Santa Rita Jail is frequently spoiled and inedible. On the week of October 5, 2020, when I was still in HU 22, beans were served with maggots in them. The maggots were cooked with the beans. When we told the deputy, his response is “this is all you get”, “eat it or throw it away”.
I have found rat poop on top of the meal trays that are going out to the housing units. When I brought this issue up with Margarita, she picked off the rat poop with her bare hands and threw it away.... I reported this to a kitchen deputy and asked for the trays to be remade. We have to fight to get Aramark to throw away food that is not fit to serve. Rather than make all new trays, they try to...