Troubled CCA Warden Vance Laughlin's Facility Riots - One Death

I do not think anyone has been more critical of Correction Corporation of America's troubled Adams County Correctional Facilities Warden than this blog. We have repeatedly called for Vance Laughlins termination. We have filed complaints with ICE and publicly documented his repeated failures. Yet he still remained in control of a facility. In this blogs opinion his lax management and long proven track record of failing to maintain National Detention Standards should of led to his termination a very, very long time ago. Yet Corrections Corporation of America still stands by this guy. Having worked directly under Vance Laughlin in the past I have personally witnessed repeated human rights violations and a overwhelming number of CCA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement audit failure results under his leadership. Having several different audits from several different organizations all arriving at the same results should of clearly shown that he would seem to not have the ability to ensure that the facilities he runs could maintain government (and even CCA's own) standards for safety and security.

Sadly today a Corrections Corporation of America correctional officer under his administrative supervision at CCA's Natchez, Mississippi facility died during a prison riot. This could very well be yet one more example of what happens when CCA continues to stand by a warden whose record in my opinion seems to clearly indicate that his leadership endangers both the detainees and staff who have to serve under him. I am pretty sure that over the coming weeks a huge host of reasons are going to come out on why this riot took place. In my personal opinion some of them will most likely point to his lack of adequate leadership abilities. Keep in mind that this is not the first riot at a facility he has supervised. Previously we documented on this blog how Vance Laughlin threw government ICE employees out of the area where a riot was taking place at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, GA during an ICE audit ironically covering National Detention Standards on things like safety & security. Sadly even after an incident like that CCA and ICE allowed him to still run a facility. Maybe if he had been previously terminated for one of the numerous things that this blog feels warranted his removal then this riot would not of happened. Perhaps then a CCA correctional officer would not of died today. This blog continues to wonder how CCA can stand by this individual. Now that a correctional officers life has been lost will CCA finally begin to take his leadership problems seriously? If not it is almost certain that more riots and deaths will follow.

Numerous stories are on the net concerning this riot. It's becoming a rather huge news story. Links can be found here (WTVY Dothan, CNN, Chicago Tribune News, WDAM, The Inqusitr)

All opinions and allegations expressed here are just that. Please cross check anything you read before forming your own decision.

Part 3: Cuéntame, The Huffington Post and the Department Of Homeland Security

This story picks up at the conclusion of part two. Click on these links for part one or part two of this series.

A while after I had been unsuccessful in attempting to get the Federal Bureau of Investigations Atlanta office to look into the very questionable circumstances around the death of Roberto Medina, I was contacted about being interviewed by one of Robert Greenwald's Brave New Foundation's media campaigns. This interview was for the Cuéntame "Immigrants For Sale" video documentary series.

During this interview I was asked about the death of Roberto Medina while he was being detained at the private for-profit Corrections Corporation of America run detention center in Lumpkin, Georgia. Investigating the many still unanswered questions around his death was part of the documentary series Cuéntame went on to produce (the actual video is posted above). The founder of Cuéntame, Axel W. Caballero, also wrote about Mr. Medina's death and the Cuéntame produced video documentary that I was interviewed in for the Huffington Post.

At the time I did not understand the significance of having my name and story in part told on the Huffington Post. Later I would read a Reuters news service article by Mark Hosenbell that detailed how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was regularly monitoring news organizations, social media, video & photo sharing sites and Internet forum sites to "collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture." One of the websites specifically mentioned and confirmed by the United States government as being monitored was the Huffington Post. Other sites that the Department of Homeland Security listed as monitoring specifically covered immigration and the need for immigration reform. The report also states that secondary websites they found and went on to monitor from listed sites were not listed. A website like "The 270 View" would seem to fall into that category pretty easily as it could be considered as having been linked to a listed and confirmed government monitored site (The Huffington Post) and also covers information (immigration reform) that we now know that the United States government is monitoring.

In the next part of this series I will get into the actual investigation of myself and this blog by the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency which is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

GOP lawmakers ridicule aid for jailed immigrants

Originally found here.

By Brian Bennett

Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Republicans in Congress mocked the Obama administration's plans to improve conditions for immigrants held in county jails and detention facilities Wednesday, saying that a raft of changes written by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement amounts to coddling lawbreakers.

In a hearing titled "Holiday on ICE," Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, took aim at recent administrative changes designed to improve medical care for detainees, reduce incidents of sexual abuse, and increase access to safe water and outdoor recreation, among other changes.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement made the changes after coming under fire from news reports, human-rights groups, and internal investigations for putting immigrants who have not been convicted of crimes in detention facilities plagued by sexual assaults and inadequate medical care.

Democrats on the committee took aim at the sarcastic title of the hearing, saying it belittled the serious issue of the agency's poor track record of ensuring the safety and health of detainees in custody. To help make that point, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D., Calif.) displayed graphic photographs depicting immigrants with fatal wounds and medical conditions that went untreated in detention facilities.

The ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, had asked Smith to reconsider the title of the hearing.

"I hope we can agree that the manner in which we treat immigrants in our detention facilities is not a laughing matter," Conyers wrote in a letter sent Tuesday.

Smith was undeterred.

"ICE has decided to upgrade accommodations for detained illegal and criminal immigrants," he said during the opening minutes of the hearing. "While we would all like to be upgraded, we don't have the luxury of billing the American taxpayers or making federal law enforcement agents our concierge."

"Detention is no holiday," said Gregory Chen, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, who attended the hearing. "I think they should be embarrassed to describe people who are deprived of their liberty as if they were on vacation."

ACLU of Georgia, Sutherland, and Attorney Brian Spears File Lawsuit on Behalf of the Widow of Roberto Medina-Martinez

Roberto Medina-Martinez Died at Stewart Detention Center Due to Alleged Negligence of Medical Staff

March 27, 2012

CONTACT:
Azadeh Shahshahani, ACLU of Georgia, (404) 574-0851; ashahshahani@acluga.org
Brian Spears, (404) 872-7086; bspears@mindspring.com

ATLANTA – The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, Sutherland, and Attorney Brian Spears filed a lawsuit today in US District Court for the Middle District of Georgia on behalf of Sara Hernandez-Gonzalez, the widow of Roberto Medina-Martinez against the US Government for its negligence which led to the death of Mr. Medina.  Mr. Medina was a 39 year-old man from Mexico who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Stewart Detention Center.  Mr. Medina died while in ICE custody at St. Francis Hospital in Columbus, Georgia on March 11, 2009, from acute myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that is usually caused by a viral infection and is often treatable.

“The records obtained by the ACLU show that Roberto Medina-Martinez was the victim of systemic negligence on the part of the medical staff at the Stewart Detention Center resulting in his unnecessary death,” said Azadeh Shahshahani, National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project Director with the ACLU of Georgia. 

The Government’s negligence included the staff’s failure to have medical examinations signed by a physician in violation of Department of Homeland Security’s Division of Immigration Health Services (DIHS) policy and the failure to note Mr. Medina’s chest x-ray as abnormal.  The Government’s negligence also included the pervasive failure on the part of the lead physician to review health records, the proper review of which combined with appropriate follow-up could have prevented Mr. Medina’s death. 

This failure was not an aberration.  An investigation conducted following Mr. Medina’s death revealed that the physician was systematically failing to conduct the required review of the medical examination information, thereby jeopardizing the health of the entire detention center population. 

“With this lawsuit, we take the next step to seek justice for the widow and family of Roberto Medina-Martinez,” said Attorney Brian Spears.   “We contend that Mr. Medina’s death could have been prevented and that he died as a result of systematic neglect by certain medical professionals at the Stewart Detention Center.”

The lawsuit against the US Government charges that negligent acts and omissions of the Government or its agents caused the death of Mr. Medina and asks the court to award damages to Mr. Medina’s widow for his wrongful death.

Attorneys on the case include J. Dean Marshall and Benjamin Morgan of Sutherland; Chara Fisher Jackson and Shahshahani of the ACLU of Georgia; and Spears.

The actual complaint can be viewed here.

Sound Familiar? A United Nations Report Details Torture In United States Detention Centers

On February 29, 2012 the United Nations Human Rights Counsel released a report alleging that 16 gay and transgender immigrants detained in United States immigration detention facilities were tortured. The report states that these actions were a direct violation of articles 7 and 12 of the United Nations Convention against Torture. This report also notes that the United States government declined to respond to a United Nations communication dated August 19, 2011, regarding allegations of torture and ill-treatment in immigration detention facilities. The United Nations Human Rights Council is now demanding an immediate investigation of the conditions of detention, solitary confinement and ill-treatment of the immigrants, and to prosecute and punish the individuals that are responsible for torturing immigrant detainees.

As a side note it is also worth noting that the United States Department of Justice is so far refusing to cover detention facilities under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). Sadly this report appears to be just another example of why PREA should apply to Detention Centers.

This Blog writer has repeatedly gone on the record and stated that he observed behavior like this as having taken place at Corrections Corporation of America's Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, GA. Back in December of 2010 I discussed on this blog how the facilities Warden (Vance Laughlin) had openly mocked a transgendered detainee to a civil rights activist who was touring the facility. In December of 2011 I ran a three part series of articles directly addressing the rape and abuse of a transgendered detainee by both the staff and prisoners at Corrections Corporation of America's Eloy Detention facility in Eloy, Arizona. This writer has also previously gone on the record as having personally observed the placement of a transgendered detainee in Solitary confinement at the Stewart Detention Center for no reason other than being transgendered. This incident was one of the topics that I briefly discussed when I spoke at the "5th Annual Shut Down the Stewart Detention Center Rally" on November 18, 2011 in Lumpkin, GA.

The United Nations Human Rights Counsel report confirms as existing conditions in United States detention centers exactly like I have previously spoken about as having personally witnessed. This blog continues to feel that if Corrections Corporation of America can not humanly hold people in detention then they are failing to live up to the contracts that the United States government has made with them. Corrections Corporation of America regularly claims that they comply with both American Correctional Association (ACA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Performance-Based National Detention Standards (PBNDS). Yet the facts continue to state otherwise.

It is way past time for Corrections Corporation of America to be held accountable for the inhumane and deplorable conditions it forces upon both the immigrants in it's for-profit detention centers and the American citizens held in it's for-profit prisons. For this to happen the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency would have to take it's self seriously and actually enforce it's own Detention Standards on the abusive companies that it contracts to run these taxpayer supported money pits of misery. However, when the United States government declines to answer the United Nations Human Rights Council's inquiries into torture it kind of makes you wonder just how seriously our government takes the conditions inside it's own detention centers.

All opinions and allegations expressed here are just that. Please cross check anything you read before forming your own decision.

A Look Ahead to this Weeks Posts

This coming week I will be continuing my series of reports on the recent Department of Homeland Security/Immigration & Customs Enforcement agencies investigation of myself and my blog. This investigation took place after I had come forward in a high profile media campaign that documented deplorable conditions and human rights violations present at Corrections Corporation of America's Stewart Detention Center (SDC). Corrections Corporation of America runs the for-profit SDC facility through a contract with DHS/ICE and Stewart County Georgia.

In a separate posting this week I will be addressing the findings of a recent United Nations report on violations against undocumented immigrants being held in detention facilities. I will be confirming having witnessed exactly the type of violations the report documents as having taken place at CCA's for-profit Stewart Detention Center.

I appreciate everyone being so patient with my sporadic blog postings as I continue to deal with my medical issues.

All opinions expressed here are just that. Please cross check anything you read before forming your own opinion.