Murder of Shannon Palmer: Lewis lieutenant stands up.

"SOS: Chuck Ryan is Killing AZ Prisoners"
Phoenix New Times Sidewalk
November 12, 2010

The ACLU National Prison Project and the Prison Law Office (which took California DOC to the Supreme Court over medical care for prisoners) are investigating the abuse and neglect of prisoners at the Arizona Department of Corrections and may sue Arizona for injunctive relief over the poor medical and psychiatric treatment. ADC employees, ex-prisoners, family members and others with first-hand knowledge or eyewitness testimony that can be offered to help protect prisoners and staff from the deteriorating conditions inside our state prisons should contact me (prisonabolitionist@gmail.com / 480-580-6807) or the ACLU of Arizona for more information. The ACLU-AZ is at:

American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona
P.O. Box 17148
Phoenix, AZ 85011

602.650.1854
info@acluaz.org

Please see my post from yesterday about the escalating violence in the state prisons, also.


Thanks to both Paul Rubin and Chuck Bauer for the following...

-----------from the Phoenix New Times-------------

A Respected State Prison Officer Quits Over Dangerous Conditions for Inmates and Guards

By Paul Rubin

PHOENIX NEW TIMES

published: September 29, 2011

Chuck Bauer loved his job as a lieutenant at the Lewis Prison Complex in Buckeye. He gradually had risen in rank over eight years (in two stints) with the Arizona Department of Corrections, winning Supervisor of the Year at Lewis twice.

But the 56-year-old Peoria resident says he became increasingly discouraged by what he saw on the job — cutbacks in personnel and resulting safety issues for "his people" (corrections officers) and for inmates.

On September 10, 2010, Bauer heard over his walkie-talkie about an inmate who was badly hurt inside Cell A-26 in Building A of the Buckley Unit, a so-called "protective segregation" area.

The incident led Bauer, within days, to quit his job and try to move on with his life — something, he says, that has been difficult.

"I am a loyal guy, and it still makes me sick to think that I abandoned my people," he tells New Times. "I just had to do it. I know from up close that bad things happen in prisons, but what happened to inmate [Shannon] Palmer that day just didn't have to happen.

"For one thing, we were short-staffed to the max, as we have been for a long time now, and couldn't keep an eye on those inmates like we're supposed to — simple matter of numbers. It was like a nightmare, and it could have happened to one of my officers just as well as to that poor guy."

Bauer contacted New Times after reading our recent "Hell Hole" cover story (September 1) about the horrific murder of Shannon Palmer, 40, a seriously mentally ill Mesa man who had but a few months left to serve on a three-year criminal-damage rap. Palmer was attacked with a razor-blade shank by Jasper Rushing, who had been his cellmate (in a cell designed for one person) for about three weeks.

Rushing was a decade into a 28-year sentence for first-degree murder when he took his weapon to Palmer's throat and then to his penis (which he cut off) after knocking him out with a makeshift club (a small sheet wrapped tightly around hardcover books).

Bauer says he immediately rushed to the wing, where he saw Palmer lying inside the cell, mutilated, bleeding profusely, and all but dead. Jasper Rushing still was in the area, handcuffed and, Bauer recalls, "as calm as a man can be."

Bauer decided to perform CPR on the unconscious Palmer himself, with the assistance of his colleague Captain Ron Lawrence.

"It was so bad that I didn't want the staffers to have to deal with it," Bauer says, without a hint of braggadocio. "There was blood everywhere, like out of a horror movie, and I knew he wasn't going to make it. But we had to try our best, and we did. I didn't even notice [Palmer's penis] on the floor until later."

Afterward, Bauer dictated his report on his role in the tragedy, changed his bloodied shirt, and tried to go about his duties. But he says he couldn't shake the feeling that Shannon Palmer's homicide, while obviously extreme, was symptomatic of issues increasingly plaguing the corrections department.

"I knew that quitting a job I have loved during this economy was pretty drastic, and people I talked to about it thought I was nuts," he says.

"But there's a time in a person's life when you have to do what makes sense to you, and I just couldn't stand by any longer and just wait for something to happen to one of my [corrections officer] guys or gals. I just didn't want to be the one that would have to make that call to an officer's wife or husband about an injury, or worse."

Bauer pulls out a piece of paper on which he has scribbled some talking points:

• The lights were off in the Palmer/Rushing cell for weeks, which was dangerous for all concerned, including the corrections officers: "We couldn't get the maintenance people to fix the lighting and lots of other things at that time. I know that sounds hard to believe, but it's true. Being in the dark is gonna drive anyone nuts."

• The corrections officer who made the ill-fated decision to assign Palmer and Rushing to the same cell in August 2010 "was completely overworked — too much on her plate — doing seven or eight different jobs, which meant she was doing none of them too good."

• Many seriously mentally ill inmates are in harm's way because of their inability to anticipate a potentially violent situation, and because Arizona's corrections department is doing a poor job of isolating that population: "There's no place to put the mentally ill, outside of prison, so we end up trying to look after them, trying to make sure they get the right meds in them, and whatever."

• Morale among state corrections officers is poor, in part, because of mandated furloughs, at the same time that Arizona's prison population continues to grow: "I know [corrections department Director] Charles Ryan has no idea who I am, but he's an idiot if he doesn't know that his officers are not happy with the safety issues and the money issues involving corrections officers that are happening on his watch."

Bauer points out that even though Rushing and Palmer were in a protective-segregation unit, this meant little.

"It doesn't mean that the inmates in that unit aren't going to get hurt [or killed]," he says. "Those guys [Palmer and Rushing] were in an [isolation] cell and weren't out in the yard, and look at what happened."

Bauer says his decision to quit his $52,000-a-year job has had great repercussions on every part of his life.

"It's not as if I had this big fancy game plan to quit my job and lose my benefits and all that," he says, adding that he and his wife don't have healthcare insurance at the moment.

Bauer recently has been trying to get his new construction-cleaning business together, and he says things are looking up. Still, he often thinks back to his last day of work at Lewis at the end of September 2010.

A warden wanted to chat with him, Bauer says, but Bauer was worried that he might be persuaded to rescind his resignation.

So instead of meeting with the warden, Bauer found his way to the opposite end of the sprawling complex and stepped through the prison gates for the last time as a corrections officer.

"One of the hardest things I've ever done," he says. "Part of me wishes that I had stuck it out and part of me doesn't. I'd like to think I had the respect of my officers and of the inmates. The inmates may not have liked me much, but they knew I stuck to my word."

Bauer asks if he can add a few final thoughts:

"What happened in that cell between those guys was as bad it gets. I still have these real bad dreams about it.

"I don't know whether to blame the Arizona Legislature for wanting to lock everyone up but not wanting to pay for it, or to blame the current director [Ryan] and the direction he's been taking.

"How about if I just blame everyone?"

Violence still climbing in AZ State prisons...

I've been perusing the Arizona Department of Corrections' (ADC) website of late and came across this report with a few things worth sharing. As many regular readers are aware, the ADC is the only state agency this year to have received an increase in their funding, placing their annual budget at about $1 billion. This came despite a decrease in the number of prisoners committed there by the courts since 2009. In fact, the ADC is getting a whole lot of new stuff despite the public's decreasing demand for their services.



To convince us of their dire need, Chuck Ryan and the state's prosecutors have been clamoring all year that 94% of ADC prisoners are "violent or repeat offenders" (as if Vicodin addicts and serial rapists pose an equal threat to the rest of us) and therefore MUST be imprisoned for our safety (see this long report - read between the propaganda, if you can). They argue that our high incarceration rates over the past decade are responsible for a falling crime rate (which was actually seen nationally due to many factors).



In truth, though, there's been a marked decrease in violent offenders among new prisoners being admitted over the past 2 years, so it's not going down because they're all getting put away. Far too many of our resources continue to go towards imprisoning people who have smuggled themselves over the border or worked hard at a job no one else wanted too many times - over 6,000 of our prisoners are foreign nationals - most of whom we just plan to deport after we expend a fortune punishing them.


Actually, contrary to what Chuck Ryan's public claims would lead one to believe, 36% of the state's prisoner population is considered so low-risk that they're in minimum security settings - which means they could be safely walking among us right now. That's over 12,000 people who don't REALLY need to be locked into their beds at night (at about $20,000/year per prisoner) for the sake of public safety.


So why aren't we talking sentencing reform at the legislature this year instead of building 5,000 new prison beds? There's plenty of evidence of the meddling of the private prison lobby and American Legislative Exchange Council in our lawmaking activities here. But there's also a large contingent among law enforcement and corrections - such as ADC Director Chuck Ryan - leading us even further down the path of mass incarceration with fear, not reason. Whether crime goes up or down, their constant refrain is that we need more prisons and police - even when our school budgets are being ravaged.



Charts are from the ADC's 2011 "Data and Information" report. Increases in violence over the past 2 years appear to be more dramatic than the changes in prisoner population and and apparent increase in the staff/prisoner ratio. Despite ADC claims that the violence grew due to budget and staffing cuts, there aren't a significant number of additional CO positions slated to be filled this year.







While there's no hard evidence that Chuck Ryan has - across his career - actually served to reduce crime in Arizona by fighting to secure longer sentences for vast numbers of petty criminals, there's ample proof that he's having a harder time than his predecessor did maintaining a safe environment for both prisoners and staff behind bars. Under his tenure, suicides and homicides have skyrocketed, and assaults are up all over.



Indicators of prison violence are projected to jump even more next year. One would think the ADC would set goals to reduce those rates, not project increases. Sadly, they seem far more concerned with bringing down health care costs than reducing prison violence - even that which is against their own people. In 2009, as Ryan's predecessor was leaving office, 1 in 40 prisoners and 1 in 17 staff were involved in an assault. Things have deteriorated so badly under his directorship that in 2012 1 in 23 prisoners are expected to be involved in fights and assaults, and 1 in 16 staff will be attacked.





Assaults on both prisoners and staff are expected to jump again in 2012. Nothing in the ADC's current 5-year plan addresses how to reduce the assault, suicide or homicide rates. Dora Schriro's reports, on the other hand, looked at these concerns closely.









Meanwhile, prisoners and their families have been told that their lives are of no value to the rest of us short of the revenue that the commodification of their bodies and the enslavement of their labor produces. Visitors have to pay for their security clearance now, rehabilitative programs have been gutted, prisoner pay was cut while medical visit co-pays increased, account deposits are being assessed a new fee, only 2 meals are served each day on the weekends, and women are dying while begging to see a doctor. Things are so bad now that the ACLU National Prison Project and the Prison Law Office are actually talking about suing the ADC for injunctive relief due to the gross medical neglect of their general prison population, as well as the abuse of solitary confinement for prisoners with psychiatric disabilities. That's pretty serious.

AZ prison violence: higher security yards are least secure...

The guys are also writing to me more for help getting protective custody throughout the system, saying that the gangs run all the 3 and 4 yards (medium and maximum security) - and few are getting it, despite being assaulted repeatedly. The guards are often part of the problem - several stood out of the way for Dana Seawright's murder, and I know of at least one guard who was prosecuted for taking a $1000 bribe to let someone try and kill a friend of mine for being gay. Look at the assault statistics for different custody levels - they tell the story of prison violence spiraling out of control.


All that those violent perpetrators seem to be getting from being in Chuck Ryan's custody, frankly, is target practice on vulnerable prisoners like Shannon Palmer, carelessly housed among the most dangerous. That way both the thugs and the brutalized are good and ready for us when they get out. That's neither tough nor smart on crime - It's just hardest on the most easily victimized prisoners, like the very old, the very gentle, and those with psychiatric, developmental, and physical disabilities - many of whom landed in prison due to the shredded safety net in our state, not due to their inherent criminality.


I suspect from all that I've seen that the violence among prisoners in our state institutions is actually serving a purpose for the ADC. The gangs keep prisoners divided by race and high on heroin so they can't unite against the real enemy and resist the conditions of their confinement. Fear keeps people spending all their energy just surviving prison life, too, and posits other prisoners as sources of danger while making it appear as if their only hope for safety will come from the institution (often in exchange for something), if it comes at all.


In order words, the gangs and yard leaders are in on it with Chuck in a very convenient relationship. How ironic that they're the ones demanding to see guys' police reports for evidence they haven't snitched on anyone when they're the main parties in collusion with the guards and ADC brass. Gang members and leaders make a show of resisting authority, but they are hardly the enemy of the state, by any means. They are in bed with them. Feel free to tell them I said that, too. Too many prisoners are being tattooed and led astray by the very rats who sell all of you out to maintain their own comfort and safety every day. If you were to unite amongst yourselves and start organizing around a new analysis of power inside, you might have a chance at disrupting that particular culture.


So spread the word and call them on their shit, guys - not only does the police report they insist on seeing fail to identify those who turned state's evidence later (everyone pisses their pants when they get busted, so they know you're likely to have something in that report they can make a big deal of), but they have no business questioning your integrity when they've been collaborating with the police state for a long time now. The gang violence also makes you all look bad out here, dehumanizing prisoners for those of us who wish to ignore your desperate predicament. In every way, those guys are just doing prisoners as a whole harm - and doing Chuck Ryan a service by keeping you down so he doesn't have to. They keep his guards in line, too.


On that note, I encourage folks to check out the ADC's website for more information about how our tax dollars are being spent fostering even more criminal activity - and destroying the lives that might be salvaged -behind bars. Here are their collected reports and statistics. The Corrections at a Glance monthly briefs are especially interesting for what they show the ADC isn't doing for the 75% of prisoners these days who come in with drug problems. Even the drunks aren't getting treatment. Given the physical state of most of the prison system, it kind of makes you wonder where all that money has been going...

Deaths in Custody: National Day of Remembrance For Murder Victims.

I spent some time this past week combing through resources for homicide survivors, trying to pull together something useful for survivors of prison violence today. I was pretty discouraged surfing murder victims' rights pages. It was the victims' rights movement that successfully helped pass a law in Arizona - and across the country - that even further marginalizes prisoners who are victims of violence - and their survivors.

More specifically, the Arizona Constitution explicitly precludes anyone who was victimized "while in custody for an offense" (or their survivor, if they died as a result) from being covered by any provisions of the Victims' Rights Amendment. How then, can they possibly hope to embrace, assist, or represent families of prisoners like Dana Haywood Seawright, Shannon Palmer, James Jennings, and Jeremy Pompeneo - all whom were murdered in state custody this past year. They have long since relegated prisoners to a status undeserving of having equal human rights when it comes to life and safety. The movement left these people behind without any apparent thought.

As a consequence, when Kini Seawright was on the verge of homelessness this year after her son Dana's homicide destroyed her life, the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission refused to provide her with access to any state-funded victims rights' services because she didn't qualify as a real victim. Dana was killed in prison by the West Side Crips for being friends with a Mexican - he was defying the racism and the gangs, not running with them. He was trying to take a class at Rio Salado and wanted to get some kind of counseling for his manic-depression and childhood abuse issues. He was beaten into a coma and stabbed repeatedly for refusing to carry out a gang-ordered hit to prove his racial loyalty. He died four days later.

Dana's homicide case was closed by the Department of Corrections' own Criminal Investigations Unit without any suspects being referred for prosecution - or even being given a ticket for the assault causing Dana's death. His mother has been working actively to get an outside law enforcement agency to re-open the case in light of evidence that guards were complicit in Dana's death. She's also suing the state of Arizona, as well as a number of individuals who appear to be liable for his murder. In the meantime, however, she suffered severe financial hardship and social isolation, for which she is not eligible to receive state assistance designated for helping victims of violent crime in such situations. An excerpt from the e-mail to that effect is here:

-------------------------------------

Sent: Tue, June 28, 2011 8:23:36 AM
Subject: RE: Kini Seawright

I have received a response to my follow up inquiry. After clarification it is ACJC’s position that the compensation program is only accountable to those statutes and rules that directly govern the Compensation Fund. Therefore, under program rules Ms. Seawright is not a victim pursuant to the definition of “victim” in A.A.C.R10-4-101(29). She is a “derivative victim” under ACJC’s rule, A.A.C.R10-4-101(10)(a), however, she is not entitled to a compensation award pursuant to A.A.C. R10-4-106(A)(3)(b) because the victim of the criminally injurious conduct was serving a sentence of imprisonment in a detention facility at the time of his death. Therefore, the prerequisites for a compensation award have not been met in this case...



Program Manager Crime Victim Services

Arizona Criminal Justice Commission

---------------------------

I can't believe that was the intentions of the victims' rights advocates in Arizona who helped get that initiative passed, but that was the consequence.

I've blogged about the Victim's Rights Amendment in the Arizona Constitution before - read my letter to the Arizona Department of Corrections on the matter here. I hope to spend more time getting organized behind a movement to change it. There are far too many families like Kini's being wrongfully punished and exiled under it. Failing to protect victims in custody gives license to law enforcement to use excessive force, and for prisons and jails to mete out cruel and unusual punishment as they see fit, not as the judges ordered. It suggests that toll of violence on one group of homicide victims and their survivors is less important than when it hits the rest of us. The state victims' rights amendment creates a sub-class of citizens whose victimization - usually at the hands of the state - we are willing to not only ignore but actively minimize. It serves to reduce the states liability profile when people are hurt in their custody - including pre-trial detention, when we're supposed to be presumed innocent.

I urge those of you concerned with the civil rights of prisoners and their loved ones to contact your state legislators and ask for help changing the definition of a victim to include those in custody for an offense. The legislature is empowered to extend victims rights to everyone - it doesn't have to go to referendum. Tell your legislator that victims of state crimes matter, too. He or she can be reached at:

Arizona State Legislature
1700 W. Washington St.
Phoenix, AZ 85007


cc your letter to the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ron Gould, and someone there who might really care: Mesa Representative and Chair of the House Health and Human Services Committee, Cecil Ash.

Finally, if you are a survivor of prison violence or have lost a loved one to it - or simply want to make a difference - please feel free to contact me. My number is 480-580-6807. I'm organizing with families now who want to see an end to the neglect, abuse, and violence now.

The work of a true revolutionary...begins at home.

I just came home from court this morning, and finally had a chance to get my police report, detailing what I'm being charged with and what evidence is against me. I already gave them most of it in letters, blogs, and postcards about my protest. I was relieved I didn't have to actually enter a "not guilty" plea this morning, because after all that, it would seem pretty dishonest. I may have a defense against some of this, though, so I'm going to speak to the attorney they gave me at the public defender's office before digging a much deeper hole. But I still have amends to make to my neighbors, since I made such a thoughtless public display of vandalizing them. I even seemed to make light of it in the process.

See, this is all about me throwing that red paint down in an alley already covered in paint during the First Friday June Artwalk. I openly admitted doing that, and committed my act of resistance in front of the graffiti detectives themselves. In the process, though, my paint splattered a few inches up the wall of the building next door, an art studio/ collective that it turns out does work with people involved in mental health programs. I'm so clueless about some of my neighbors that I had no idea they were doing that kind of work, or I would have talked to them about this all in advance, even though I had no intention of hitting the alley side of their studio wall. Instead, I learned about my neighbors from my own criminal report, listing them as my victim. I feel pretty crummy about that.





In my police report, the manager of the place said she wanted to prosecute because what I'd done would have been so upsetting for some folks participating in the programs - which I inferred was of particular concern for those folks with pre-existing psychiatric conditions. I get that - and can see it upsetting others as well. That explains to me why it was important to clean it up, without messing around with my offer to re-paint it myself - even I would have called Graffiti Busters to clean up after myself if I thought it through. It really was unintended - that doesn't mean I'm not responsible, though. I acted out without much thought for the neighbors over there, or their members and guests. That's not very excusable, given what I could have brought out for some folks with images of bloodshed across the alley, as well as the names of the dead. That's me acting out my own unresolved trauma, in part - they don't need my help with theirs.


So, this blog post will no doubt be added to the evidence they use against me in the end, but I'm truly deeply sorry for having dragged you all into the middle of my protest. You're already doing your part to protect our people from ending up in prison in the first place. I hope that if my activities ever trouble you that way - criminal or not - you feel okay contacting me.


Most people with mental illness, by the time we're my age, have already been through too much. I'm dually-recovering myself, survived a horrible, violent suicide of a loved one, and the last thing I would want to do is traumatize someone else further. We all need to feel safe in order to grow, and I undermined that for some folks, I suspect, by all my agitation and graffiti - which invited others to contribute more. I was also wrong to define the terms of resistance by my own standards without talking to others living and working around there that night, outside of what I call my own community.


I thought this protest would be all about getting my message out about the state's violence, not mine. It still is, in a way, but not how I thought it would be. It's been said that the work of a true revolutionary begins in the our own communities, taking care of others. Despite all I preach about the importance of doing so if we're to really hold each other accountable and not rely on the criminal justice system for amends to be made in cases like this, when it came down to it I didn't practice that. I think this is the bigger lesson in all this - it's for me, not for the cops. I understand why people get upset about graffiti, now. My total lack of concern for the effect of my actions that Artwalk on the people right next door is my real crime, though - even if I hadn't even touched their property.



But an apology alone is not an amends. I'm inclined to think that only those folks - and perhaps the participants they were concerned about - can say what they feel justice would be, having been harmed in some way by me - and I respect it if they feel the criminal justice system is the way to get that, and to restore their own sense of safety and order in their community. I'd have a pretty hard time pleading not guilty to that charge, after all this. The charges filed about city property, though, I'll probably fight.


I think I just threw myself at the mercy of the court - or my victims, I'm not sure which. I guess now I should wait until I talk to an attorney before commenting much further on all this. Thanks to my friends for showing their support today. I really think I need to reconsider some of my tactics...



Peg

--

Margaret J. Plews, Editor
Arizona Prison Watch
P.O. Box 20494
Phoenix, AZ 85036
480-580-6807

"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness, and our ability to tell our own stories..."

- Arundhati Roy

Prison Abolitionist
http://prisonabolitionist.blogspot.com
Arizona Prison Watch
http://arizonaprisonwatch.blogspot.com
Arizona Juvenile Prison Watch
http://azjuvenileprisonwatch.blogspot.com
Hard Time Alliance - AZ
http://hardtimehepc.blogspot.com
Survivors of Prison Violence

http://azprisonsurvivors.blogspot.com

Cop-Court Watch: Montgomery on Gerster & Keesee

"Indict Arpaio" Rally - Wells Fargo,
June 7, 2011 (Phoenix)

For those of you following the cases of the MCSO detention officers (Kevin Gerster and Alan Keesee) who assaulted their prisoners in the psychiatric unit of Lower Buckeye Jail, I'm writing to try to set the prosecutor's side of the story straight - or at least give you a piece of it. I guess it's more a clarification than a correction, so I didn't rewrite my earlier posts - just redirected folks here. I wrote to County Attorney Bill Montgomery last week because it appeared from court records as if the assault case against Alan Keesee had been dropped at the initiative of his office. My confusion, I guess. Montgomery got back to me pretty quickly asserting that the prosecution is moving forward nonetheless, and re-iterated the reason he didn't proceed with prosecuting either of those guys for abusing "vulnerable adults," as I'd been urging.

Frankly, I think if this had occurred in any other kind of institution treating psychiatric patients, the vulnerable adult statute would be invoked to raise the felony level and broaden the sentencing possibilities. But I honestly don't know the law well enough to ferret this all out myself, so I figured it was best to just let you hear the explanation straight from the county attorney.

My apologies for attributing anything less than professionalism to the folks working hard on these detention officer's prosecutions.

--email from Bill Montgomery's office, Thursday September 8, 2011--

From Bill Montgomery:

We were able to resolve the case by filing a Direct Complaint/Plea proceeding without having to go through the entire Preliminary Hearing/Trial process. So, while it looks like charges were dropped, we still proceeded with prosecution.

I can assure you that the resolution leads to the defendant no longer working in law enforcement, let alone detention.

I would also appreciate it if you would acknowledge that the goal of holding people in positions of responsibility for safely and securing handling inmates accountable when they break the law is being met. We may disagree about the best way to accomplish that but my commitment to that goal remains. Also, I previously explained to you that the basis for the crimes committed was not the mental status of the victim but the fact that he was restrained. That was the direct set of facts. If we had charged the Class 2 Felonies there is a high likelihood that we would have failed to secure convictions. It was more important to me to charge the appropriate crime so we could ensure convictions.

Thank you for your continued advocacy,

Bill Montgomery

Maricopa County Attorney

301 W. Jefferson, 8th Floor

Phoenix, AZ 85003

602-506-1260