US - Florida inmate was gassed to death while locked in solitary confinement

[ro4eva]

"They killed that damn kid. He laid there for five days begging for help."

FRANKLIN COUNTY, FL — An inmate was locked in solitary confinement and repeatedly sprayed with mustard-colored gas until he died, an investigation has uncovered. Officials then allegedly covered up the death and claimed it was due to natural causes.

The case has been buried for four years, until four Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) investigators came forth as whistle-blowers to reveal allegations of multiple cases of torture, abuse, corruption, and homicide.

Veteran DOC investigator Aubrey P. Land is one of four speaking out, and claims to have been “bullied” through official channels. Of the corruption uncovered, Land found the death of 27-year-old Randall Jordan-Aparo particularly disturbing.

“I’ve done this for 30 years. My skin don’t crawl very often,” Land said. “They killed that damn kid. He laid there for five days begging for help.”

The inmate was being held in the Franklin Correctional Institution and was experiencing cold-like symptoms caused by a pre-existing blood disorder that was documented in his prison medical file. Instead of giving him proper medical treatment, guards showered him in poisonous gas.

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The Miami Herald reported Land’s findings:

[Randall Jordan-Aparo] had been ill for weeks prior to his death, begging for medical attention as he increasingly grew weaker.

When he could barely breathe, walk or talk, he demanded that the prison’s nurses take him to the hospital. They allegedly refused, even after consulting by phone with doctors and other medical staff.

Jordan-Aparo became angry, and cursed the nurses, threatening “to sue their asses’’ if they didn’t get him to the hospital, records show.

The nurses called the guards, claiming Jordan-Aparo was being “rude.” The guards placed him in a steel-walled solitary-confinement cell.

“The next day, the captain comes down there and gasses him, and gasses him and gasses him,’’ Land told Miguel.

He was sprayed so much that photographs show the outline of his body surrounded by mustard-colored gas all over the cell walls.

The prison’s supervisors and guards fabricated reports saying that their use of chemical agents was justified because Jordan-Aparo was “causing a disturbance.’’ Land, who said he viewed video footage of the inmate’s last hours, said the inmate was too sick to cause a disturbance and that all he wanted was to go to the hospital.

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Mr. Jordan-Aparo was found dead in solitary confinement with a Bible next to his head, covered in yellow residue from the gas. He was serving an 18-month sentence for fraud and drugs.

The death took place in September of 2010, and has been buried for years. At the time, the inmate’s father was told by prison officials and the Franklin County medical examiner that his son died from natural causes — an “infection.”

As such, the incident was never treated as a homicide and no investigation took place. No one was ever disciplined or held criminally responsible.

Investigators Aubree Land, John Ulm, Doug Glisson, and David Clark have filed a lawsuit against the state of Florida, alleging systematic abuse, corruption, and brutality inside the Department of Corrections. The lawsuit states that they were retaliated against for uncovering official misdeeds.

This news comes as the warden of the Dade Correctional Institution, Jerry Cummings, was suspended as investigators probe the suspicious death of another Florida inmate who was allegedly cooked to death by torturous prison guards in a scalding shower until his skin began to peel off. He was serving two years for drug possession.

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Further Reading (Miami Herald) - http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/07/07/4223414/prison-system-mired-in-corruption.html
Original Link - http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/randall-jordan-aparo-prison-death/

Edit - Facebook comment on Miami Herald's site/article, allegedly from a psychotherapist who worked there and was fired for not agreeing to go along with their coverup(s):

I am the psychotherapist Julie Brown refers to in her story. I was the only former counselor to come forward publicly about the ways mentally ill inmates were tormented, beaten, tortured, and murdered.

When I was still working at TCU in Dade CI, where Darren Rainey was tortured and killed in a scalding hot shower, I heard accounts of abuse from inmates throughout all of Florida. These men, coming in for psychological treatment, told me of beatings, gassings, and murder - much the same as finally revealed by Mr. Land in the Miami Herald story.

Until now, little was done. I was fired for refusing to go along with the cover-up of the beating of an inmate named Swilling. Ten months later a former coworker called me with the grisly details of Rainey's murder. I wrestled with what I could do. Everything I tried seemed to dead-end. I tried in vain for two years to get someone to pay attention. For instance, I interviewed with FBI agents, sent an email to a Herald reporter (not Julie Brown!), filed a complaint with the Dept. of Justice in DC, etc., etc. I even started writing a book when all else failed - due to be self-published August 1. I would not stay silent.

I am so glad it is all coming out now. I'm equally pleased to know that I wasn't the only one who cared about what happened to inmates in the Florida DOC. A huge thanks goes out to the Investigators who came forward about the horrors at Franklin CI and filed the federal whistle-blower complaint.

For the record, DOC "investigators" are very serious about uncovering corruption in the DOC. I was a guest with one named Gary York on a nationwide radio show called "A Just Cause Radio." He uncovered abuses at Charlotte CI that resulted in ten arrests of correctional officers. I will present an edited down version on my website soon.

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Okay, so I was wrong about not being surprised anymore about these stories involving abuse of power - and some people still believe that prison is where your life is turned around for the better. This may be an extreme example of how inmates are treated, but the norm isn't far off. They put on a big smile when the cameras from National Geographic come to record, until they leave that is.

 

[weekend addiction]

I bet something like this happens every day.

 

[neversickanymore]

Sounds like the holocaust. The sick people that do these crimes need to be prosecuted, convicted, and sent away for many years.

 

[Apostacious]

Oz certainly wasn't far from the truth.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Don't get me wrong, people die in other country's prisons all the time. That said...

If I had a penny for every time someone has died in a US jail or prison in the last 20 years 8)

Oz certainly wasn't far from the truth.

Compared to reality the TV show was pretty tame, either that or just off in terms of what I guess you'd might call "factual content." It pissed me off when it was on and I ended up loathe to watch it.

 

[pmoseman]

Fluorine?

 

[ro4eva]

Don't get me wrong, people die in other country's prisons all the time. That said...

If I had a penny for every time someone has died in a US jail or prison in the last 20 years 8)

You bring up an excellent point, IMO. And it was precisely this type of argument which was playing over and over in my head while I pondering whether I should bother posting this tragic story.

I didn't want to share another story of the consequences of the abuse of power by certain correctional officers just for the heck of it, and to justify its existence because the victim was serving time in part for drug-related charges.

However, the circumstances of this story made me decide otherwise.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I don't think they're mutually exclusive arguments at all though, just a little perspective. The person who takes them as exclusive arguments, especially as mine taking priority, would be nothing but a cynic, and only in the negative sense of the word.

I think it was great that you posted this. People incarcerated or in prison are intentionally removed from and cut off from society. Unless you are part of the system, or have the displeasure of going there, it's really hard to form an accurate picture of what is actually happening inside. Yet it's more crucial than ever for us (well, people tent to have less power once they've become a part of the system or experienced incarceration - so by "us" I mean "those who have not been incarcerated or are part of our All-American disperate, draconian system or crime and punishment") to understand the Prison Industrial Complex, and even more so what it's like to be incarcerated. When we spent more on throwing people in prison than educating them, there is something seriously fucked up with our society. And that's just one issue of the many, many problems with where mass incarceration has taken us today...

So articles like the one you've posted here are very useful, especially considering the purpose of our forums here.

 

[ro4eva]

I don't think they're mutually exclusive arguments at all though, just a little perspective. The person who takes them as exclusive arguments, especially as mine taking priority, would be nothing but a cynic, and only in the negative sense of the word.

I think it was great that you posted this. People incarcerated or in prison are intentionally removed from and cut off from society. Unless you are part of the system, or have the displeasure of going there, it's really hard to form an accurate picture of what is actually happening inside. Yet it's more crucial than ever for us (well, people tent to have less power once they've become a part of the system or experienced incarceration - so by "us" I mean "those who have not been incarcerated or are part of our All-American disperate, draconian system or crime and punishment") to understand the Prison Industrial Complex, and even more so what it's like to be incarcerated. When we spent more on throwing people in prison than educating them, there is something seriously fucked up with our society. And that's just one issue of the many, many problems with where mass incarceration has taken us today...

So articles like the one you've posted here are very useful, especially considering the purpose of our forums here.

Thank you very much for your words of encouragement TPD - it's appreciated.

I gotta mention something which has been nagging at me since yesterday:

I honestly don't mean to personally attack the following BLer by stating what follows, but one of the key reasons why I chose to post the above article was because I recalled pmoseman's arguments - which I'm paraphrasing hereafter - that prison is a place where an inmate's life is generally positively influenced, and that it serves to rehabilitate criminals into individuals who are more respectful of others, and the law in general. And as someone who has been locked up (both in Ontario, Canada and North Carolina, USA) purely for drug possession-related offenses (with no aggravating factors), I have viciously disagreed with that ideology. I admit that I went too far in some cases and my response came out as more a rant than a coherent, reverent, well-mannered rebuttal. Therefore, should you accept it pmoseman, I apologize for my uncalled for rudeness at times, because I do not believe I'm superior to you or anyone else, so I'm truly sorry.

Moving on then - perhaps when the first prison(s) were built, the rationale behind such an institution was of genuine efforts of goodwill and rehabilitation towards convicted individuals, however, it certainly felt like any original intentions have long been lost in time, as I witnessed countless injustices being committed by the staff towards myself or other inmates. And I'm not talking about my opinion of what is unjust - I saw inmates being carried off top "the shoe" (also known as "the SHU," or, the Secure Housing Unit) for something as benign as refusing to answer questions when spoken to, or, accidentally sneezing on a guard's shirt. These memories will probably go with me to the grave. They are a very small part of the reason why I have a very difficult time trusting any and all branches of law enforcement.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I'm so happy you've promoting this conversation ro, this is exactly what BL and DiTM needs more of. People don't always remember how significant prison and incarceration is to American life, especially when it comes to promoting harm reduction and the lives of people who use or care about those who use or are part or affected by (but aren't we all!) the WOD.

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I've spent almost he last decade of my short life as a sort of prison (or anti-prison) activist of sorts. I've been inside them as a cog in the machine, I've worked and volunteered in them, I wrote my thesis at uni on them, and I've probably seen and interviewed hundreds of inmates, guards, workers and former inmates, not to mention the prisons themselves (well, to the degree you can interview a structure, although while I can't hold much of conversation with one they can tell me a lot).

The history of prisons and incarceration, as the relatively very new form of punishment that it is, is fascinating. Perhaps, once upon a time, about a hundred years ago, when the more progressive ideas of incarceration as rehabilitation was more popular among policy makers, prison might have been a place where an inmates life is generally positively influenced and they come back in a better situation and the rule of law is strengthened by their experience.

The first prison was created in the US, but it wasn't build to rehabilitate prisoners really. It was actually a mine that was converted into a prison - prisoners were lowered into the mine through the shaft, along with supplies once in a while, and they essentially lived and worked in the mine. It was largely an economic venture, similar to for-profit prisons today. The rational behind that new concept of incarceration, next to capital punishment which was the only other form of punishment at the time, was largely seen as benefiting the prisoner and society, as more humane, more civilized and essentially better for everyone.

The closest prisons got to realizing the concept of punishment as rehabilitation is the farm style prisons circa the 1920's (I believe off the top of my head, around there, possibly a little earlier), where inmates worked on the farm and learned technical skills as well as more domestic skills as they served out their sentence. They ate the food they grew and sold the rest to locals. In terms of prison, these were probably the best prisons America has ever seen, although they were not super widespread. They were largely self sufficient too, costing very little to actually operate.

That, however, could not be farther from the truth when it comes to our current situation. Being incarcerated is like being part of a factory farm. Totally dehumanizing experienced, intentionally designed to be so. Prisoners, if they're lucky, get to work in prison factories, earning $0.02 an hour, their work contracted out by major corporations. Violence, literal physical violence as well as the psychological violence that being totally dehumanized can breed, is the rule and not the exception, especially in men's prisons. Few if any actual classes or forms of treatment to better the lives of prisoners and ready them to reintegrate/reenter society are available (most have been cut due to budget issues in the last decade or so, and there weren't many to begin with).

Currently, there is no rehabilitation going on for those incarcerated. At least not in any meaningful sense. Prisoners currently serve two purposes - increase the wealth of private corporations and their shareholders when it comes to private prisons, and to control and recreate the status quo in our dwindling and underfunded state and federal prisons (re: racial and socioeconomic disparities).

If anyone wants to learn about prisons and incarceration, their history and the current state of affairs, as well as how fucked up they can be and how they affect (read: damage) our society (e.g. rip families apart, support small rural towns without any industry or with dead or dying industry, etc. etc.), check out Angela Davis' extremely well written book, Are Prisons Obsolete? It's a really short read and packs all your need to know about prisons into about 60 or 70 pages I think. Here is a PDF of Are Prisons Obsolete? too.

(please excuse the spelling and grammar, in a rush)