OUTRAGEOUS & DANGEROUS situation. Federal prison
inmates are freezing without heat in 2 degrees F. weather!
Call the warden, Herman Quay
The phone no is 718-840-4200 (I hit "0" after
the machine and got a very curt answer saying go to
www.bop.gov
The email address is: <BRO/<mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask]>
Fax: 718-840-5005
The phone in Washington DC for federal bureau of prisons is (202) 307-3198
I called as media -- there are many other options
the machine said MEDIA should email
email: <[log in to unmask]>
there are other email addresses too ...
The warden blames Con Ed, Con Ed says it's the
prison's fault, and meanwhile the prisoners are
suffering greatly. Prisoners and guards say that
there is NO HEAT in the prison in below freezing
temperatures, and NO ELECTRICITY. And it's been that way all week.
Let's flood them with calls, faxes, emails so
that they treat people with respect, and save
people's lives. (yes, it's that serious!)
Prisoners should be transferred to other
facilities, or taken to the hospital, or in my view simply released.
ALSO, PLEASE CALL YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES
AND, USE TWITTER!!
- Mitchel Cohen
Brooklyn Greens/Green Party
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/nyregion/mdc-brooklyn-jail-heat.html
No Heat for Days at a Jail in Brooklyn Where
Hundreds of Inmates Are Sick and ‘Frantic’
By <https://www.nytimes.com/by/annie-correal>Annie Correal
Feb. 1, 2019
More than a thousand inmates have been stuck in
freezing cells at a federal jail on the Brooklyn
waterfront that has had limited power and heat
for at least this week, according to federal
public defenders and leaders of the union
representing the jail’s corrections officers.
“They just stay huddled up in the bed,” said June
Bencebi, a case manager at the jail and the
treasurer of the local chapter of the American
Federation of Government Employees, which
represents about 500 corrections officers at the jail.
The jail, the Metropolitan Detention Center,
houses more than 1,600 inmates and lies in an
industrial swath near the waterfront in Sunset
Park, Brooklyn. Some inmates are linked to
high-profile drug trafficking and terrorism
cases, while others are comparatively anonymous New Yorkers awaiting trial.
The accounts of conditions at the jail were
described to The New York Times by six lawyers
and paralegals with local Federal Defenders
offices, who had spoken with around three dozen
inmates at M.D.C.; two union leaders; and an
employee at the jail who was not authorized to speak publicly.
A spokeswoman for Herman Quay, the jail’s warden,
said in an email that the building experienced a
partial power outage on Saturday but denied that
it had affected heat and hot water in the jail’s housing units.
In an emailed statement, the federal Bureau of
Prisons confirmed that the jail was “experiencing
a partial power outage” and operating on
emergency power. “Cells have heat and hot water,
there is lighting in the common areas and inmates
are receiving hot meals,” the agency said.
The Bureau of Prisons indicated that the
electrical failure was related to Con Edison,
which it said had been “dealing with numerous
power emergencies in the community.”
A spokesman for the utility, Robert McGee,
disputed the characterization and said Con Edison
had not had problems in New York during the cold
spell. “It’s an internal problem, and their
electricians will have to fix it,” Mr. McGee said. “End of story.”
Union leaders and defense lawyers also rebutted
the account of the jail’s warden and the Bureau of Prisons.
Federal defenders said they were flooded with
calls from inmates this week as temperatures
began to drop. “Our phone was ringing off the
hook,” said the lead federal defender in
Brooklyn, Deirdre von Dornum. She said inmates,
using a dedicated line that connects the jail to
federal defenders offices, had gathered around
the telephones on their floors to report poor
heating, little to no hot water and no lights in their cells.
On Thursday, Rachel Bass, a paralegal at the
Brooklyn office of the federal defenders, said
that she had fielded calls from about 15 inmates.
“In the past hour I have gotten 11 calls,” she
said. “People are frantic. They’re really, really
scared. They don’t have extra blankets. They
don’t have access to the commissary to buy an extra sweatshirt.”
She said many inmates complained of congestion and sore throats.
The president of the local chapter of the union,
Anthony Sanon, said the problems began around
Jan. 5 when the jail first lost power. The
heating issues began last week, leaving inmates
and staff to face freezing weather for the first
time. “We didn’t have heat in the building, we
didn’t have light,” Mr. Sanon said. “The weather was actually unbearable.”
The heat and power issues were unrelated,
according to union leaders who spoke to
facilities workers. The heating issues began when
units that draw water up from the boilers froze.
The workers said that the heat was on, but several units had been disabled.
The electrical problems originated in an
electrical panel that blew out last month, the
union leaders said. Although the panel was
initially repaired, it caught fire on Sunday.
The jail switched over to emergency power,
leaving the corridors lit only by dim lights, the
cells dark and inmates confined to poorly heated
cells during the coldest days of the winter so
far. This week, the temperature plummeted to 2
degrees in New York City, as frigid weather swept
over the Midwest and Northeast.
“The heat isn’t coming out properly,” Mr. Sanon said.
One inmate told a federal defender that a
corrections officer had taken the temperature in
a housing unit, which was warmer than the cells, and it was 34 degrees.
New York City’s Fire Department confirmed that it
responded to a small electrical fire in the jail’s control room on Sunday.
But the warden’s spokesperson, who signed the
name V. Logan, said in the email the power outage
had “minimally impacted” housing units.
“All housing units have functional lighting,” the
email said. “Heat and hot water has not been
impacted. Likewise, inmate meals are not
impacted; inmates are receiving regularly scheduled hot meals each day.”
Taken together, the accounts of nearly three
dozen inmates given to federal defenders painted
a different picture of conditions inside the jail.
Heat was the main complaint. The heat was spotty
to nonexistent, depending on the floor. Hot water
was scarce. Hot food had not been served for
several days, with canned food handed out cell by
cell. One inmate, who kept kosher, said he had only been given canned sardines.
The inmates were promised extra blankets, but
they never came. The commissary, because of the
limited electricity, was closed.
“All said they were wearing whatever they could
to stay warm,” said Randi Chavis, a federal
defender in the Central Islip, N.Y., office who
spoke to several people. “Extra pairs of socks,
towels wrapped around their heads, durags, thermals if they have them.”
The conditions were aggravated by the lack of
electrical power, inmates told the lawyers and
paralegals. The jail had abandoned its usual
routines, with inmates kept on partial lockdown for safety reasons.
Because power outlets were not working, the
inmates could not use the computers that usually
allow them to communicate with relatives and
place requests for prescription refills.
“One man takes anti-seizure medication which he
is allowed to keep with him,” Ms. Chavis said.
“He takes two pills a day and is down to his last three pills.”
Legal visits and family visits had been canceled
since Sunday, the lawyers said.
The recent events come on the heels of the
government shutdown, which impeded the ability of
lawyers to visit their clients in federal jails,
including at M.D.C. It did not immediately appear
that the power and heat issues were related to the shutdown.
On Thursday, the federal defenders filed an
emergency motion to remove from the jail an
inmate whose asthma had worsened from the cold.
The inmate, Dino Sanchez, a Brooklyn man in his
40s, had recently entered the jail, a federal defender, Benjamin Yaster, said.
Mr. Yaster said in an interview that his client
had been among those left in a dark cell,
illuminated only by sunlight from the windows,
virtually around the clock. “The population was
kept in their cells for 23 hours,” he said. “He’s
stuck in these cold conditions in a short sleeved
jumpsuit and a short sleeved undershirt.”
“He feels short of breath and is wheezing and
coughing more than he normally would,” said Mr. Yaster.
The federal defenders initially requested that
the M.D.C. management provide backup heating or
more blankets. They later requested that inmates
be moved to an adjacent building, now empty but for a few dozen female inmates.
They said they received no response. “Not only
have the conditions been disgraceful but we have
peppered them with questions and we get nothing
but silence,” said David E. Patton, head of the
federal defender office. The office represents
thousands of indigent defendants.
“They might say, ‘an incident occurred,’ or
‘visiting is canceled’ but when we follow-up to
ask if people have heat, hot water, or adequate
access to their families or attorneys, they stonewall us,” Mr. Patton said.
The building next door, also run by the jail, has full power and heat.
Mr. Sanon, the labor union leader, said he
contacted the warden beginning early last week
and toured the jail with him. He was assured heat
would be monitored. “To no avail,” he said on Thursday.
“This morning again I got a call,” he added. “It was freezing.”
Ms. Bencebi, the union treasurer, said she was
particularly concerned for older inmates. “I have
several inmates that are very elderly,” she said.
“One of them complained that he’s been sick for
the last few days. He looks sickly. He’s walking slower. Talking slower.”
On Friday, local elected officials reacted to
news reports of the conditions inside the jail.
Brad Lander, a Brooklyn Democratic councilman,
said on Twitter, “The freezing prisoners at the
Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park are
banging out SOS for all of us to hear.”
Representative Nydia M. Velázquez visited the
jail on Friday,
<https://twitter.com/NydiaVelazquez/status/1091493134347964417>writing
on Twitter that there was some restored heat in
the facility, along with hot water and hot meals.
But she said she was continuing to watch the
situation closely: “Still not at full capacity. Still cold & dark.”
---------------------------------------------
Joseph Goldstein contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on
Feb. 2, 2019, on Page A21 of the New York edition
with the headline: ‘Frantic’ Inmates in Brooklyn
Jail Complain of No Heat for Days in Deep Freeze.
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