Guards at Alligator Alcatraz are now wearing Grim Reaper patches: report
Source: The Independent
Thursday 12 March 2026 20:58 EDT
Guards inside Florida’s notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention facility are reportedly wearing patches featuring the Grim Reaper and the words “You can’t hide.”
A former guard at the facility, which sits on an old airstrip in a remote patch of the Everglades, reportedly made the patches and distributed them to other staff members.
“What I saw was ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ a skeleton dressed in black holding a hatchet and a crocodile underneath,” former detainee Lewis Ortigoza told the Miami Herald of the patch. “It looked like something demonic.” “I always felt haunted by it, but I never said anything because I was so afraid,” he added.
The patch first came to light when a guard, who had been discharged from Critical Response Strategies, a government contracting firm that provides staffing at Alligator Alcatraz, reportedly handed it to a protester outside the facility earlier this month.
Read more: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/alligator-alcatraz-florida-grim-reaper-patch-b2937653.html
Also from the Miami Herald - Why are Alligator Alcatraz guards wearing a Grim Reaper patch?
Includes a report by one of the activists from the group "Witness at the Border" protesting outside of the facility area, who actually got one of the patches from the officer who had been discharged as he was driving off, and handed it to her -
Prokopas said she was standing outside the facility on March 3 holding a cardboard sign that read “SHAME” when Martinez stopped his truck near the entrance gate while waiting for a break in traffic to pull onto U.S. 41.
The two began speaking through the open window of his vehicle. During the exchange, Martinez told her he had just been fired after fighting with another officer. He had fresh gashes on his face.
Prokopas said Martinez was wearing the patch on his uniform. She said he then removed it from his shoulder and handed it to her. An upset Martinez told Prokopas that he previously worked for the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office in Texas.
He said he had just been discharged from Critical Response Strategies, the private contractor that provides security at the detention center, after a physical altercation with another guard.
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