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.
The inmate grievance response is “....Santa Rita can’t just let you out, you must be released through the courts.” So I asked my Public Defender regarding said issue, and she said the courts are not going to give me a 5-month-early release but she did state: Santa Rita Jail could give me an early release without a court order.
Every human life here is based on a dollar. It doesn't matter if you're spending money on this GTL network or buying these overpriced canteen items. People are being denied the full medical treatment they need. Please share this information with the news and anyone you can. The jail is providing false information to the media. The more people whose eyes are opened to conditions like this the...
Everyone in the hole had COVID-19. We know we did, even though we were all denied tests. They brought someone to the hole one day, and then took him back to his pod later that same day. But having come to that area where everyone else was infected, he was obviously exposed. Two days later, he was returned to the hole, showing symptoms of COVID-19. Who knows who else he may have spread it to.
The public should know that inmates inside are suffering from our lack of medical help, dental care, food, yard time—we get yard two times a week to see daylight, only 4 hours at best. They should know that there are unsanitary conditions and a lot of police misconduct.
I believe that I contracted COVID-19 while in the OPHU of Santa Rita Jail, as that is the only source where I had contact with individuals who had COVID-19, and that the sheriff failed to take the necessary steps to protect me from contracting COVID-19, failed to do the required testing, and failed to take action, well within the sheriff's power and control, to even refer me to emergency housing...
The next day, they gave me the COVID test, and on April 30, 2020, I tested positive. In solitary confinement, I got nothing. No cough drops, no extra blanket, no Tylenol, no hot drink, nothing. Just be in that room and suffer. Truly, I thought I was going to die.
The jail didn’t tell me anything, but I knew that everyone in C had tested positive for the corona virus. I am essentially in solitary confinement, with nothing for comfort, and no medical treatment. I have had no shower. I have no soap. I have none of my property. I have not been given any clean clothes. I received nothing for my cough. I received nothing for my body pains.
On April 15, 2020, at 9:30am, the doctor came by to tell me that I would be finished quarantining that day. ...Around 11 a.m. or noon, staff let me out to shower, but the showers were still filthy — I considered them unusable. At this point, I had not showered since April 4, 2020. I also still had the same clothes and same underwear I had been wearing for over 10 days.
He immediately slapped hand cuffs on me, and twisted my arm, and dragged me to Housing Unit 8C, even though I was feeling so poorly. When I arrived at Housing Unit 8C, the first cell they put me in was so filthy, with garbage and dirt all over the cell that I told them if they forced me to be in that cell, they would have to put me on suicide watch.
I had not seen medical people or received medical attention since being placed here. I was having a hard time breathing. I had bad diarrhea, I had a shooting headache. I still had a bad cough. I had shivers and chills. One night, I had such trouble breathing I had a panic attack. I’m breathing but it did not feel like air was going on. And I can’t submit a medical request slip, I have no way of...
Cedrick tested positive for COVID-19 on April 8, 2020, and was transferred yesterday to HU2, which is the "hole", because when the deputies came yesterday to remove him from quarantine, he informed them that he was still not feeling well, and did not want to be moved in with a roommate who was not infected, out of concern that he would transmit the virus to another person.
He was starting to get a fever, chills, and body aches. He started losing his sense of smell and taste, which would continue for two weeks....He finally went to OPHU, where they put him in an isolation cell with a gurney set up on the floor. Peter was tested for COVID-19 on April 5 by taking a swab inside his nose, but the test came back negative. He was confused by this, as he had all the same...
He reported that while the last three weeks, on Fridays, the Sheriff’s Department has passed out soap, they did not pass out soap this week. He was also told by a Sheriff’s deputy that he is safer in jail, because being on the outside results in two risks: contracting Coronavirus and re-offending (again, he is pretrial).
The medical staff has done nothing for him except to keep him locked up in his cell as a "quarantine". Jim said he is afraid he might die. He has asthma, and told me that up until a few days ago the nursing staff was having the men "share" an inhaler.