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Updated: 7 hours 20 min ago
Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District fires pro-union workers
It is an injustice that workers are targeted for the most extreme punishments (suspension without pay, possible termination without prior warnings) for resting and taking an extended break, while harassment and sexual harassment, anti-union activity/retaliation, acts of aggression against bus drivers and monitors by the Transportation Director and Staff which create a hostile work environment and unsafe schools, go unpunished to date. [read full article with photos]
"Eviction is the crime!" Cops Respond to Eviction Resistance with Raid, Assaults at Rosemary's
Upcoming: Saturday 10am Leaflet at 7th/Hennepin outside Obama event | Sunday 2pm Press conference outside Rosemary's house
Check back for an extended article soon plus more video. Have videos, photos, or updates? Post them as a comment or publish to the newswire.
On Labor Day, Domestic Workers Fight for Bill of Rights
domestic workers march
Interview of Joyce Campbell, DWU organizer, at their Labor Day protest.The Domestic Worker's Bill of Rights is before the New York State Senate RIGHT NOW. Help make New York the first state in this country to respect and protect the lives and work of domestic workers. Domestic Workers United (DWU) has worked hard the last 5 years to get this far- the New York House has passed the bill and the Governor has promised to sign it.
Call your New York State Senator (or share this with New Yorkers who can make the call) and ask them to support S2311- otherwise known as The Domestic Worker's Bill of Rights. For more information on DWU, visit www.domesticworkersunited.org.
This piece was produced by Kistine Carolan for Labor Justice Radio. www.laborjusticeradio.podomatic.com
Labor Justice Radio is part of the Media Mobilizing Project.
Labor Day in Downtown San Francisco
More than a thousand hotel workers and their supporters marched through downtown San Francisco on Monday, September 7th, to demand a fair contract in their ongoing negotiations with the city's hotels, among them the Hyatt Regency and Le Meridien.
The Unite Here! Local 2 march started at the Embarcadero Hyatt to draw attention to the refusal by Hyatt to allow a fair process that would allow the workers at the Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf to have union representation. The march proceeded to HEI Le Meridien that is also a non-union hotel in the heart of downtown. A major concern of the Local 2 workers is the history of Hyatt in aggressively demanding health care cuts. This is from a company whose president and CEO made $6.7 million last year.
Photos: 1 | 2 | 3
Previous Related Indybay Feature: Local 2 Takes to the Streets for Affordable Health Care and Job Security
The Unite Here! Local 2 march started at the Embarcadero Hyatt to draw attention to the refusal by Hyatt to allow a fair process that would allow the workers at the Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf to have union representation. The march proceeded to HEI Le Meridien that is also a non-union hotel in the heart of downtown. A major concern of the Local 2 workers is the history of Hyatt in aggressively demanding health care cuts. This is from a company whose president and CEO made $6.7 million last year.
Photos: 1 | 2 | 3
Previous Related Indybay Feature: Local 2 Takes to the Streets for Affordable Health Care and Job Security
Another salmon disaster in the making!
The Scott River is dry and dying. Unless there are large, sustained rainstorms soon, Chinook salmon which are ascending the Klamath River now will not be able to reach spawning grounds in most of the Scott River Basin – a major Klamath tributary. And unless there are big rainstorms over the next three months Coho salmon will also be trapped low down in Scott River Canyon and will not reach spawning grounds in the Scott River Valley and above.
Farmers and ranchers in the Scott River Valley are beginning to irrigate a third cutting of alfalfa. Rice – a new and thirsty crop - and cattle pastures are also being irrigated – some with brand new pumps and center pivot systems paid for by US taxpayers. If you ask them, these folks will acknowledge that the low Scott River flows are not good for salmon. Many will quickly add that the flows we see this year are natural given two years of below normal precipitation. Examination of historical flow, precipitation and snowpack data, however, as well as comparison with other nearby streams, does not back up that assertion.
Real time and historical flow data available on line from the California Department of Water Resources http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/stationInfo?station_id=SFJ indicate that, in fact, low late summer and fall flows are becoming more common in the Scott. Since the year 2000, for example, August Scott River flow has been below 1,000 acre feet in 5 out of 9 years (an acre foot is the amount of water sufficient to cover an acre of land in one foot of water).
This August 343 acre feet of water flowed past the government-operated flow gauge in the Scott River below the agriculture-dominated Scott Valley. This is the second lowest August flow for the Scott ever recorded; the lowest (339 acre feet) was in 2001. But the 1980s and 1990s had only three such years and from 1960 through 1980 the Scott River’s August flow only once dipped below 1400 acre feet. That was the year of the Great California Drought - 1977. The Scott River’s August flow in 1977 was 632 acre feet.
The numbers tell a story of progressive river dewatering as more irrigation wells are drilled each year.
The Scott River accounts for the bulk of non-hatchery Klamath River Basin Coho production Along with the nearby Shasta River, which is experiencing flows nearly as bad as those in the Scott, the Scott also produces a sizable chunk of the Klamath’s non-hatchery Chinook salmon. If Chinook salmon can not reach Shasta and Scott spawning grounds this year we will be looking at yet another closure of commercial and sport fishing up and down the coast of California and Southern Oregon three and four years from now. With the loss of that fishery comes big economic losses to coastal and river communities which depend on sport and commercial fishing business
Yet, in spite of past and looming salmon disasters, the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) – the agency responsible for protecting salmon and other Public Trust Resources in California - is planning to give those responsible for the dewatering of the Scott and Shasta Rivers a free pass to keep pumping more and more water and consequently to keep killing thousands of young salmon each and every year. CDFG has proposed providing agricultural operations in the Shasta and Scott with a permit to “take” Coho salmon. As proposed, the permit would provide legal coverage for all agricultural operations – including the unlimited pumping of groundwater.
But it is that very groundwater pumping which a recent peer reviewed scientific assessment found to be the prime cause of the Scott River’s dewatering. In their 2008 statistical study of 5 streams in the Klamath Mountains published in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association, Robert Van Kirk and Seth Naman reached the following conclusion:
“39% of the observed 10 Mm3 decline in July 1-October 22 discharge (flow) in the Scott River is explained by regional-scale climatic factors. The remainder of the decline is attributable to local factors, which include an increase in irrigation withdrawal from 48 to 103 Mm3/year since the 1950s” (emphasis added).
Other nearby streams have also experienced flow declines in recent decades. But no other stream has had declines anywhere near the magnitude Van Kirk and Naman found on the Scott. The full Van Kirk-Naman study is available on line at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119879193/abstract
For the past 25 years the US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, Bureau of Reclamation, California Department of Fish and Game and Forest Service have poured an estimated $25 million in taxpayer funds into the Scott River Basin in order to restore salmon. A similar amount has been spent in the Shasta River Basin. Yet throughout this period Chinook and Coho salmon stocks have declined while the dewatering of the Scott and Shasta Rivers progressed unabated. Most “restoration” in the Scott and Shasta River Basins has helped farmers; benefits to salmon have been minimal. Except for giving cover for continued dewatering, recovery and restoration of salmon in the Scott and Shasta has been a bust.
Managers working for the US Forest Service have been among those who have failed to take action to end the dewatering. In the Scott River Basin, the Forest Service holds a court adjudicated water right to flows in the Scott River below the agricultural Scott Valley which are sufficient to maintain salmon and other fish in “good condition”. Yet these managers have remained silent even though the adjudicated water right they hold is increasingly not being met in the late summer and fall – the very time when Chinook and Coho salmon are migrating up the Klamath in order to reach spawning streams.
Irrigators and Forest Service officials will tell you this right is secondary to irrigators’ rights. That is the way the adjudication decree reads. But the Forest Service right is riparian in origin and in California riparian rights take precedence over other water rights. Yet Forest Service managers refuse to act to stop the dewatering of the Scott.
The situation on the Scott and Shasta Rivers is evidence of the deep seated corruption which infest those agencies whose duty it is to protecting our fish and wildlife. But the self-styled “defenders” of Klamath River Salmon are also not without blame. Environmentalists, fishing organizations and Klamath River Basin tribes have been silent and inactive for far too long as the dewatering of the Scott and Shasta Rivers has progressed.
Scott River flows continue to decline today even as irrigation continues. There are rumblings of discontent and rumors that action will be taken to stop and reverse the dewatering. So far, however, no action has been taken. Will the environmental, tribal and fishing communities which have been partners in championing living rivers and salmon recovery step up, join together and act to keep corrupt state and federal officials from allowing these rivers to die? Will those who have engaged in direct action for salmon in locations as far away as Scotland, Omaha, Sacramento and Salem also act to highlight the dewatering of the Scott and Shasta Rivers?
Stay tuned!
Troy Davis' Innocence To Finally Be Considered
On August 17, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court took the rare step of ordering a new hearing for Georgia death row prisoner Troy Anthony Davis. The nation’s highest court ordered a federal district court in Georgia to “receive testimony and make findings of fact as to whether evidence that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes his innocence.”
In 1991 Davis was convicted for the 1989 killing of an off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail. There is no physical evidence tying Davis to the crime scene and seven out of the nine non-police witnesses have since recanted or altered their initial testimonies. Others have implicated the prosecution"s key remaining witnesses as the actual perpetrator of the crime.
Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion states: “This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is "actually” innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged “actual innocence” is constitutionally cognizable."
In a separate opinion answering Scalia’s dissent, Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Ruth Brader Ginsburg and Stephen Bryer, wrote “The substantial risk of putting an innocent man to death clearly provides an adequate justification for holding an evidentiary hearing.”
Read More: 1 | 2 | Capital Defense Weekly blog | TroyAnthonyDavis.org
Previous Indybay Feature: Global Day of Action for Death Row Inmate Troy Davis |
New Afrikan Anarchist POW Ojore N. Lutalo is free!!!
Free the Land!Ojore was released from New Jersey State Prison at 4pm on August 26th and is currently in Philadelphia getting reoriented to being on the streets. He will eventually be moving to New Jersey once he finds a space.
In the meantime, if anyone would like to donate funds to Ojore to help him get more quickly get reoriented, please contact Tim Fasnacht from the Philly chapter of the Anarchist Black Cross Federation. You can contact him at timABCF at aol dot com
In Solidarity,
ABCF
HUMANITARIAN CONVICTED OF LITTERING SENTENCED TO COMMUNITY SERVICE, BANNED FROM REFUGE
Tucson, AZ: On Tuesday, August 11 No More Deaths volunteer Walt Staton was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and 1 year unsupervised probation by federal Magistrate Jennifer Guerin. Staton was convicted on June 3, 2009 for littering, after placing clean bottles of drinking water along known migrant trails in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge (BANWR). Staton is also banned from entering the refuge for one year.
In response to the sentence, Bill Walker, Staton’s attorney, made the following statement:
“I think that the judge was very brave in not inflicting the kind of punishment that the U.S. attorney recommended. She didn’t impose a harsh fine, nor did she give 5 years probation, which is what they wanted. The U.S. Attorney’s office, on the other hand, was awful in the way they conducted themselves throughout the proceedings. They politicized this case, and made significant misrepresentations in their statements to the Court. They spent untold thousands of dollars prosecuting this case when they should be going after terrorists and others who threaten our communities. There is no reason for them to have gone after somebody who was simply doing humanitarian work, the way that they did.”
Staton, who is moving to the LA area next week to begin seminary school, stated that he will continue to support No More Deaths' life-saving work, and believes that both humanitarian groups and the government should pursue the most effective tactics possible to prevent needless suffering and death along the border.
"Before the sentencing this morning, I read a story in the local paper about another body of a migrant discovered in the desert. We have to continue working towards bringing these deaths to an end," Staton said.
Letters of support for Staton had been delivered to Magistrate Guerin from the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas, and former U.S. Attorney Bates Butler, among others.
2009 is set to be one of the deadliest years on record along the Arizona-Mexico border. Already, the U.S. Border Patrol reports 161 migrant deaths in its Tucson sector. In the past week alone, 7 bodies of unauthorized migrants were recovered in southern Arizona.
Since 2001, officials at BANWR have systematically refused to approve permits that would allow humanitarian groups to provide adequate drinking water on the wildlife refuge. Following the July 9, 2009 citation of thirteen additional humanitarian volunteers, members of No More Deaths, Tucson Samaritans and Humane Borders have sat down with various officials, including Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, regional U.S. Fish and Wildlife director Chris Pease, and BANWR manager Mike Hawkes to attempt to resolve this impasse.
Since the mid-1990s, U.S. border policy has been focused on channeling unauthorized migration into remote and fragile desert areas. This has resulted in more than 5,000 deaths along the U.S./Mexico border, and damage to protected wildlife habitat. Volunteers from No More Deaths consistently work to mitigate the environmental impact of these policies, by incorporating trash cleanup into their regular patrols. Each year, No More Deaths removes hundreds of bags of trash from the southern Arizona desert.
In response to the sentence, Bill Walker, Staton’s attorney, made the following statement:
“I think that the judge was very brave in not inflicting the kind of punishment that the U.S. attorney recommended. She didn’t impose a harsh fine, nor did she give 5 years probation, which is what they wanted. The U.S. Attorney’s office, on the other hand, was awful in the way they conducted themselves throughout the proceedings. They politicized this case, and made significant misrepresentations in their statements to the Court. They spent untold thousands of dollars prosecuting this case when they should be going after terrorists and others who threaten our communities. There is no reason for them to have gone after somebody who was simply doing humanitarian work, the way that they did.”
Staton, who is moving to the LA area next week to begin seminary school, stated that he will continue to support No More Deaths' life-saving work, and believes that both humanitarian groups and the government should pursue the most effective tactics possible to prevent needless suffering and death along the border.
"Before the sentencing this morning, I read a story in the local paper about another body of a migrant discovered in the desert. We have to continue working towards bringing these deaths to an end," Staton said.
Letters of support for Staton had been delivered to Magistrate Guerin from the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas, and former U.S. Attorney Bates Butler, among others.
2009 is set to be one of the deadliest years on record along the Arizona-Mexico border. Already, the U.S. Border Patrol reports 161 migrant deaths in its Tucson sector. In the past week alone, 7 bodies of unauthorized migrants were recovered in southern Arizona.
Since 2001, officials at BANWR have systematically refused to approve permits that would allow humanitarian groups to provide adequate drinking water on the wildlife refuge. Following the July 9, 2009 citation of thirteen additional humanitarian volunteers, members of No More Deaths, Tucson Samaritans and Humane Borders have sat down with various officials, including Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, regional U.S. Fish and Wildlife director Chris Pease, and BANWR manager Mike Hawkes to attempt to resolve this impasse.
Since the mid-1990s, U.S. border policy has been focused on channeling unauthorized migration into remote and fragile desert areas. This has resulted in more than 5,000 deaths along the U.S./Mexico border, and damage to protected wildlife habitat. Volunteers from No More Deaths consistently work to mitigate the environmental impact of these policies, by incorporating trash cleanup into their regular patrols. Each year, No More Deaths removes hundreds of bags of trash from the southern Arizona desert.
URGENT: Prisoner Attempts Suicide Twice in One Month: Take Action Now!
HRC/Fed Up! has received three reports from SCI Fayette that Tierre Davis #DY1710 has cut himself in a suicide attempt. One report states that Mr. Davis is in the Intensive Care Unit of the Uniontown hospital. Despite being on razor restriction because of his attempt to kill himself by setting his cell on fire July 26th, he somehow managed to get a razor; suspicions are that a guard provided it.
Call Fayette, Secretary Beard, and the Office of Professional Responsibility today! Fayette has known that Mr. Davis was not only suicidal but attempted to seriously harm himself less than one month ago. They are still refusing to provide mental health care and he is being subjected to ongoing violations of his rights: SCI Fayette: 724-364-2200: Ask to be connected to the Superintendent's Office and demand that Mr. Davis be immediately transferred out of the Special Management Unit and sent to a facility for mental health treatment. This treatment is outrageous. Mr. Davis has submitted countless grievances regarding guard misconduct and even attempted to file charges with the state police against Lt. Vojacek for sexual assault. Fayette continues to ignore his situation and keep him under the control of the same staff that has repeatedly called him racist slurs and encouraged him to kill himself.
Demand immediate transfer and let them know that Supt. Coleman and his staff will be held accountable for any further harm suffered by Mr. Davis. Call Secretary Beard (717-975-4918) and inform them of Mr. Davis's situation and the need for his office to personally intervene in an out of control situation where Supt. Coleman is displaying deliberate neglect. Call Office of Professional Responsibility Director James Barnacle (717-214-8485) and demand an immediate investigation, including interviews with prisoner witnesses and a probe into the seemingly endless reports of flagrant, disgraceful, and brutal violations of human rights in the Restricted Housing Unit and Special Management Unit of Fayette. Please take action today! This is the fourth reported suicide attempt by three prisoners from SCI Fayette in the last 5 weeks. Call your representatives, call the press, call your friends and call your family. Prisoners lives are at stake and we have to act on our responsibilities and demonstrate our solidarity and outrage. Thank you. Health and Solidarity HRC/Fed Up!
Chronology of Grievances
(1) An official inmate grievance, dated 10/31/08, was submitted to Grievance Coordinator Rhonda House by Tierre Davis. Mr. Davis states that Lt. Vojacek threatened him when the inmate refused his sexual advances, claiming that Vojacek vowed to make Davis' stay here "hell." The very next day Davis was denied yard, shower, and found hair, rocks, staples, spit, and dirt in his food. Davis also claims he has been issued fabricated misconducts and called racist epithets during this time. Capt. Legget, Counselor Link, and the Unit Manager, along with others have been informed of this grievance. These conditions prompted Tierre Davis to go on a hunger strike in late October/early November. OPR has allegedly began an investigation.
(2) In a letter written in late November 2008 Tierre Davis indicates that he has been held in solitary confinement for 69 straight months.
(3) Tierre writes that he is currently (November 19, 2008) in a hard cell where the temperature is freezing. This is confirmed by Eric Lyons.
(4) In the winter of 2009 Mr. Davis entrusted a sealed portion of a prisoner jumpsuit to HRC/Fed Up!, claiming that it possessed DNA evidence from Lt. Vojacek as a result of the sexual coercion reported above. An investigator from HRC/Fed Up! has contacted OPR on two occasions and attempted to file a criminal complaint with accompanying forensic evidence to the state police on two occasions and the District Attorney of Fayette County once. All law enforcement agencies have refused to accept the complaint and alleged evidence, with the State Police stating that their official policy, contained in the Field Regulations Manual, is not to investigate the DOC unless the DOC requests such. This is official confirmation that the DOC is a law unto itself.
(5) Mr. Robinson reports that three prisoners- Anthony Singleton, Tierre Davis, and Neilson Gonzalez-attempted suicide in a two week period in July, the first via hanging and the latter two by setting their cells on fire. All three are in solitary confinement and the Superintendent's office has been contacted frequently regarding their conditions of confinement.
(6) On this day Mr. Davis and Mr. Gonzalez set their cells on fire. Staff took an inordinate amount of time to extract them and put out the fire, with C/O Wolf reportedly stating, "fuck them, I don't care If they die. They shouldn't have set the fire." Mr. Maple believes this was a suicide attempt by Mr. Davis, whose face was severely burned. HRC received a suicide note, dated 7/23, from Mr. Davis two days after the fire. Lt. Vojacek was responsible for the delayed staff reaction. Mr. Davis has a series of grievances against this officer. Furthermore, Mr. Gonzalez confirmed in a letter that the fire was an attempt at self-harm, and reported to a prison society official visitor that "voices" in his head were encouraging him to set his cell on fire.
(7) Mr. Davis set his cell on fire on this day, as did Mr. Gonzalez. Lt. Vojacek deliberately delayed in responding to the situation, and when he did he sprayed Mr. Davis with mace after he first cuffed him. For ten days after this incident Mr. Davis was kept in a hard cell with only t-shirt and boxers and a smock blanket (for the last 7 days), where he was extremely cold. While in the hard cell Mr. Davis was kept in belly chains with his hands cuffed to them for 72 hours. Only after Mr. Davis repeatedly banged his fists and head on the wall, bleeding in the cell, in order to get removed to the infirmary. He was also on a hunger strike for several days to protest these inhumane conditions. During this time Lt. Rymarowicz and Sgt. Knizer intentionally destroyed his cell property, including legal work.
(8) Multiple prisoners report that Mr. Davis cut himself severely with a razor, one prisoner claiming that he had to be sent to the ICU in the Uniontown hospital as a result.
email: hrcfedup@gmail.com
phone: 412-361-3022
web: http://www.thomasmertoncenter.org/fedup
Call Fayette, Secretary Beard, and the Office of Professional Responsibility today! Fayette has known that Mr. Davis was not only suicidal but attempted to seriously harm himself less than one month ago. They are still refusing to provide mental health care and he is being subjected to ongoing violations of his rights: SCI Fayette: 724-364-2200: Ask to be connected to the Superintendent's Office and demand that Mr. Davis be immediately transferred out of the Special Management Unit and sent to a facility for mental health treatment. This treatment is outrageous. Mr. Davis has submitted countless grievances regarding guard misconduct and even attempted to file charges with the state police against Lt. Vojacek for sexual assault. Fayette continues to ignore his situation and keep him under the control of the same staff that has repeatedly called him racist slurs and encouraged him to kill himself.
Demand immediate transfer and let them know that Supt. Coleman and his staff will be held accountable for any further harm suffered by Mr. Davis. Call Secretary Beard (717-975-4918) and inform them of Mr. Davis's situation and the need for his office to personally intervene in an out of control situation where Supt. Coleman is displaying deliberate neglect. Call Office of Professional Responsibility Director James Barnacle (717-214-8485) and demand an immediate investigation, including interviews with prisoner witnesses and a probe into the seemingly endless reports of flagrant, disgraceful, and brutal violations of human rights in the Restricted Housing Unit and Special Management Unit of Fayette. Please take action today! This is the fourth reported suicide attempt by three prisoners from SCI Fayette in the last 5 weeks. Call your representatives, call the press, call your friends and call your family. Prisoners lives are at stake and we have to act on our responsibilities and demonstrate our solidarity and outrage. Thank you. Health and Solidarity HRC/Fed Up!
Chronology of Grievances
(1) An official inmate grievance, dated 10/31/08, was submitted to Grievance Coordinator Rhonda House by Tierre Davis. Mr. Davis states that Lt. Vojacek threatened him when the inmate refused his sexual advances, claiming that Vojacek vowed to make Davis' stay here "hell." The very next day Davis was denied yard, shower, and found hair, rocks, staples, spit, and dirt in his food. Davis also claims he has been issued fabricated misconducts and called racist epithets during this time. Capt. Legget, Counselor Link, and the Unit Manager, along with others have been informed of this grievance. These conditions prompted Tierre Davis to go on a hunger strike in late October/early November. OPR has allegedly began an investigation.
(2) In a letter written in late November 2008 Tierre Davis indicates that he has been held in solitary confinement for 69 straight months.
(3) Tierre writes that he is currently (November 19, 2008) in a hard cell where the temperature is freezing. This is confirmed by Eric Lyons.
(4) In the winter of 2009 Mr. Davis entrusted a sealed portion of a prisoner jumpsuit to HRC/Fed Up!, claiming that it possessed DNA evidence from Lt. Vojacek as a result of the sexual coercion reported above. An investigator from HRC/Fed Up! has contacted OPR on two occasions and attempted to file a criminal complaint with accompanying forensic evidence to the state police on two occasions and the District Attorney of Fayette County once. All law enforcement agencies have refused to accept the complaint and alleged evidence, with the State Police stating that their official policy, contained in the Field Regulations Manual, is not to investigate the DOC unless the DOC requests such. This is official confirmation that the DOC is a law unto itself.
(5) Mr. Robinson reports that three prisoners- Anthony Singleton, Tierre Davis, and Neilson Gonzalez-attempted suicide in a two week period in July, the first via hanging and the latter two by setting their cells on fire. All three are in solitary confinement and the Superintendent's office has been contacted frequently regarding their conditions of confinement.
(6) On this day Mr. Davis and Mr. Gonzalez set their cells on fire. Staff took an inordinate amount of time to extract them and put out the fire, with C/O Wolf reportedly stating, "fuck them, I don't care If they die. They shouldn't have set the fire." Mr. Maple believes this was a suicide attempt by Mr. Davis, whose face was severely burned. HRC received a suicide note, dated 7/23, from Mr. Davis two days after the fire. Lt. Vojacek was responsible for the delayed staff reaction. Mr. Davis has a series of grievances against this officer. Furthermore, Mr. Gonzalez confirmed in a letter that the fire was an attempt at self-harm, and reported to a prison society official visitor that "voices" in his head were encouraging him to set his cell on fire.
(7) Mr. Davis set his cell on fire on this day, as did Mr. Gonzalez. Lt. Vojacek deliberately delayed in responding to the situation, and when he did he sprayed Mr. Davis with mace after he first cuffed him. For ten days after this incident Mr. Davis was kept in a hard cell with only t-shirt and boxers and a smock blanket (for the last 7 days), where he was extremely cold. While in the hard cell Mr. Davis was kept in belly chains with his hands cuffed to them for 72 hours. Only after Mr. Davis repeatedly banged his fists and head on the wall, bleeding in the cell, in order to get removed to the infirmary. He was also on a hunger strike for several days to protest these inhumane conditions. During this time Lt. Rymarowicz and Sgt. Knizer intentionally destroyed his cell property, including legal work.
(8) Multiple prisoners report that Mr. Davis cut himself severely with a razor, one prisoner claiming that he had to be sent to the ICU in the Uniontown hospital as a result.
email: hrcfedup@gmail.com
phone: 412-361-3022
web: http://www.thomasmertoncenter.org/fedup
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