I'm a little late in posting this due to some health problems I have. This is the first part in a new series of articles on this blog detailing why I believe this blog was investigated by the Department of Homeland Security/Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency. See last weeks blog for more information.
In March of 2009 Roberto Martinez Medina died while being detained at Corrections Corporation of America's (CCA) Stewart Detention Center (SDC). Mr. Medina died from what many people believe was a very treatable heart infection. Mr. Medina allegedly was repeatedly denied medical attention for this condition. Many activists and organizations have also pointed to the location of CCA's Stewart Detention Center as being a major factor in his death. With almost 2,000 people being detained at the Stewart Detention Center many people continue to believe that a location closer to major medical service providers should of been chosen for the facility. By locating this facility almost a full hour away from any source of advanced medical care, immigrants being detained there will continue to pay a price. For Mr. Medina that price was his life.
Many months after Mr. Medina's Death this blog began to receive reports of incompetence and indifference among Corrections Corporation of America and Public Health Services employees that we believe led to Mr. Medina being denied medical care. Allegedly the Public Health Services medical staff on duty refused to see Mr. Medina while some of the Corrections Corporation of America staff on duty (who were aware of Mr. Medina's pleas for medical care) displayed an uncaring attitude that ignored Mr. Medina's pain and suffering even as they watched him very slowly die in front of them. It is my personal belief that the repeated denial of medical services while in Corrections Corporation of America's custody at the Stewart Detention Center had an immediate and terminal effect on Mr. Medina's health.
This blog however also wishes to highlight the previously undocumented actions of a few unnamed Corrections Corporation of America staff members who in the face of corporate adversity did the right thing and continued to try and seek medical care for Mr. Medina. Perhaps if the Corrections Corporation of America supervisors on duty and the facilities administration had been more sympathetic to there pleas of needed care then Mr. Medina would still be with us today. It is regretful that these employees can not get the recognition that they deserve for trying to prevent what ultimately became a possibly preventable tragedy. The fear that these employees felt in contacting me in regards to Mr. Medina's death speaks volumes about the environment and corporate culture that Corrections Corporation of America appears to have in place at the Stewart Detention Center.
As a blogger I chose at the time not to write about the allegations I received regarding Mr. Medina's untimely death on this blog. I believed that this issue was much larger than my own blog. I believed that it was far more important to try and get justice for Mr. Medina than to write about it to my blog's own very small readership. So instead of blogging I optimistically contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Atlanta, GA through FBI Special Agent in Charge Brian D. Lamkin to make a Civil Rights Complaint in the death of Mr. Medina. I contacted the FBI several times and to this day I have never received any type of reply from the FBI or any other government official or department regarding Mr. Medina's death. It had been my hope that an investigation into Mr. Medina's death would be conducted in order to prevent future situations like this from taking place. I had apparently wrongly believed that someone in the government would care about the death of a detainee who died while in the custody of a for-profit company that the United States government had subcontracted with to detain him.
All opinions expressed here are just that. Please cross check anything you read before forming your own opinion.
In the next part of this series I will release my actual (unanswered) letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (F.B.I.) that outlines what I believe was a conspiracy to cover-up Corrections Corporation of America and Public Health Services negligence in the death of Mr. Medina. It is still my belief that employees of both of these entities denied Mr. Medina basic medical care which led to his death while in Corrections Corporation of America's custody.
