ACLU Sues Over Conditions at La. Jail (inmates abandoned after Katrina)

[deadparrot]

BATON ROUGE, La. - A civil rights group filed court papers Thursday demanding access to the New Orleans city jail to investigate allegations that inmates were abandoned for days after Hurricane Katrina, without food or drinking water, in chest-high floodwaters with floating corpses.

It took three days to evacuate more than 6,000 inmates from the lockup after the storm hit Aug. 29, prison authorities have said. The prisoners are now being held at 38 state and local lockups around Louisiana.

The American Civil Liberties Union's court filings demand information about where each prisoner is locked up. The group also wants the sheriff's office to halt any cleanup at the jail because it could destroy evidence that prisoners were left standing in bacteria- and petroleum-laden floodwater.

A spokeswoman for Sheriff Marlin Gusman said in an e-mail that the sheriff had not yet been served with the papers.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051007/ap_on_re_us/katrina_jail

[mom cat]

1. Human Rights Watch on the abandoned prisioners:

New Orleans: Prisoners Abandoned to Floodwaters
Corinne Carey, researcher, U.S. Program, Human Rights Watch

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/09/22/usdom11773.htm

Officers Deserted a Jail Building, Leaving Inmates Locked in Cells
(New York, September 22, 2005)—

As Hurricane Katrina began pounding New Orleans, the sheriff's department abandoned hundreds of inmates imprisoned in the city’s jail, Human Rights Watch said today.
Of all the nightmares during Hurricane Katrina, this must be one of the worst. Prisoners were abandoned in their cells without food or water for days as floodwaters rose toward the ceiling.

Inmates in Templeman III, one of several buildings in the Orleans Parish Prison compound, reported that as of Monday, August 29, there were no correctional officers in the building, which held more than 600 inmates. These inmates, including some who were locked in ground-floor cells, were not evacuated until Thursday, September 1, four days after flood waters in the jail had reached chest-level.

“Of all the nightmares during Hurricane Katrina, this must be one of the worst,” said Corinne Carey, researcher from Human Rights Watch. “Prisoners were abandoned in their cells without food or water for days as floodwaters rose toward the ceiling.”

Human Rights Watch called on the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct an investigation into the conduct of the Orleans Sheriff's Department, which runs the jail, and to establish the fate of the prisoners who had been locked in the jail. The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, which oversaw the evacuation, and the Orleans Sheriff’s Department should account for the 517 inmates who are missing from the list of people evacuated from the jail.

Much more at....
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/09/22/usdom11773.htm

[mom cat]

2. Also note tha following on La jail abuse.

mom cat (1000+ posts) Fri Oct-07-05 02:30 AM
Original message
Louisiana: Detainee Abuse Requires Federal Probe
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/10/05/usdom11826.h...

Louisiana: Detainee Abuse Requires Federal Probe
Corinne Carey, researcher, Human Rights Watch

Prisoners Evacuated After Hurricane Describe Beatings by Officers
(Jena, Louisiana, October 5, 2005)—The U.S. Department of Justice should immediately investigate the alleged mistreatment of detainees at Louisiana’s Jena Correctional Facility, Human Rights Watch and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) said today.

Detainees told us they felt they were being treated like animals. They were frightened and some were even crying. One said, ‘I don’t know what they’ll do to me once y’all leave here.’


Interviews conducted on Tuesday by the two organizations revealed widespread claims of abuse against pretrial detainees who had been evacuated to Jena from Jefferson Parish Prison because of Hurricane Katrina. Every detainee but one of the 23 interviewed reported that he had been hit or kicked by the prison staff.

The detainees said that correctional officers at Jena slapped, punched, beat and kicked detainees and sprayed them unnecessarily and repeatedly with pepper spray. The detainees, primarily African-Americans, also described degrading treatment and racist language by the Louisiana state correctional officers, who were primarily white.

Related Material

Louisiana: After Katrina, Inmates Face Prison Abuse
Press Release, October 3, 2005

End Abuses against Inmates Who Were Evacuated after Katrina
Letter, October 3, 2005

New Orleans: Prisoners Abandoned to Floodwaters
Press Release, September 22, 2005
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/09/22/usdom11773.htm


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[suneel112]

3. Abu Ghraib all over again...

First foreign concentration camps, then domestic concentration camps...
Proves that the leader Bush follows the most is Adolf Hitler.

[DBoon]

5. Abu Ghraib is no anomaly

I believe that what went on there is really no different than what happens in many jails and prisons across the US.

The rest of the world does not realize how brutally we treat suspected and convicted criminals.

[Davis_X_Machina]

6. Jails...

...contain people who haven't even been convicted yet.

If you can't make bail, or bail is denied, you're still innocent till proven guilty.

Ergo....

Jails are full of innocent people.

Come to think of it, that's like Abu Graib too.

[mom cat]

4. Please rate up the Yahoo article...and this thread.