All indications are that two convicted murderers escaped a maximum-security prison in New York state’s North Country and spent most of June at large because of an appalling breakdown in security. Well, this morning’s edition of The New York Times reveals that something equally appalling may have happened in the aftermath of the daring prison break. An investigation by The Times suggests that inmates at Clinton Correctional Facility that they were the target of “a campaign of retribution” in the days after Richard Matt and David Sweat tunneled their way out of the prison.
The article makes for horrifying reading. Several inmates claimed that while corrections officers were trying to get to the bottom of how Sweat and Matt’s break occurred, they veered into conduct that not only violated state regulations, but also violated the inmates’ constitutional rights and basic standards of decency.
One inmate, Victor Aponte, says a corrections officer tied a plastic bag around his neck and tightened it until he passed out. He told Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, an organization that helps indigent prisoners in the state correctional system, that he was initially denied access to medical care. Aponte wrote that when he finally saw a doctor, he was warned not to tell anyone how he was actually injured; if he did so, “they were going to kill me for real this time.” Another inmate, Paul Davila, told the agency that he was browbeaten into signing a report denying that officers assaulted him. Others say that they were transferred to other prisons with virtually no advance warning, and were summarily stripped of privileges they’d taken years to accrue.
But by far the most horrifying anecdote comes from Patrick Alexander, whose cell was next to Matt’s. Around 8 p.m. on the night after the break, Alexander said he was taken to a broom closet where three corrections officers were waiting for him. Alexander said that a member of the prison’s Crisis Intervention Unit grabbed him by the throat and lifted him out of the chair. The three guards then beat Alexander repeatedly while interrogating him for about 20 minutes, and threatened to waterboard him when he claimed not to know anything.
A spokesman for the corrections’ officers union told CNN that the inmates’ charges are “one-sided” allegations made by “a handful of violent convicted felons.” According to The Times, however, the stories of abuse described by numerous inmates have been very similar.
Not only would these actions be blatantly unconstitutional, but so far they have been a wasted effort. Indeed, the only people to be held to account for the break have been prison employees. For those of you keeping score, prison tailor’s shop supervisor Joyce Mitchell has already pleaded guilty to helping Sweat and Matt escape, and corrections officer Gene Palmer is facing criminal charges. Additionally, nine other corrections officers have been placed on leave, along with most of the prison’s top leadership, pending an internal investigation.
According to CNN, the FBI is mounting a broader investigation into corruption and criminal activity at Clinton. But New York shouldn’t wait for that probe to be wound up to start making changes. It goes without saying that if there is anything at all to these inmates’ claims, more people need to be fired–and possibly brought up on federal and state civil rights charges.
