Let me bring you up to speed.
If you remember, back on May 1. 2020, there was what was conveniently labeled a “riot” at the ICE detention Center on the campus of the Bristol County House of Corrections in Dartmouth MA all under the supervision of the anti-immigrant, self-promoting Sheriff Thomas Hodgson.
From the beginning of the pandemic people both inside and outside the county facilities were concerned about conditions within them which, if true, could be bad for inmates and staff. The public was assured by the sheriff that he had it all under control and nothing other than what he was doing would work.
To support his adherence to do things his way with no input from anyone else even considered, he rejected the proposed program to thin the incarcerated herd by releasing those in county jails there only for yet to be adjudicated minor offense charges, those there only because they couldn’t make bail, those who were close to release, and other specifically enumerated reasons for such a release, and declared that, not only were those advocating for the inmates politically motivated, uninformed, and anti-Trump, he accused the inmates who sent letters to them about conditions in the sheriff’s facilities of just outright lying.
Many of the detainees in the sheriff’s ICE facility had expressed fears about COVID 19 and the lack of safeguards while the sheriff had been assuring the public,
“We’ve dealt with this before in a prison setting. We have protocols. We make adjustments. We pay attention to the CDC. We pay attention to briefings from the White House,”
Claiming, while condemning anyone who would dare question him, that
“The motto of the left-wing activist groups, abolish-ICE advocates, Prisoners’ Legal Services and plain anti-Trumpers has always been, and continues to be, ‘Don’t let the facts interfere with your political agenda.”
But a judge eventually ruled that
“Keeping individuals confined closely together in the presence of a potentially lethal virus, while neither knowing who is carrying it nor taking effective measures to find out, likely displays deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm. That is what the evidence shows here.”
When, after prevailing on the State’s Attorney general to conduct an investigation of conditions in the jail that would make it clear who, the sheriff or the inmates by way of outside advocates, was telling the truth, an obvious no brainer in his favor if the sheriff had nothing to hide, the sheriff publicly dismissed it as politically motivated.
To him the AG was attacking Trump by proxy.
Yet, when the local department of health held an inspection, one with little time given to gussy the place up, it was found none of the protocols of the CDC had been added to the appropriate files, inmates were too close together, and equipment was in disrepair with the actual defense offered by the sheriff department to show how great the conditions of the jail were being to relate how one error was corrected with the inspector watching. That does not mean there was no problem, it means you had to fix the discovered failure.
On May I, although there had been plenty of attention given to the need for testing and less crowded conditions by inmates and outside advocates, like their attorneys, and the suggestions of ways to help control the virus at the House of Corrections, which were ignored, there was a sudden and panicky need to get testing done now, and with little preparation or explanation, the detainees in the ICE facility saw something beyond simple testing and, as a result of their reluctance to voluntarily walk into an unknown situation supervised by the anti-immigrant sheriff who made no secret of his disdain of the detainees that could result in an allegedly positive COVID19 test result to ensure that the less docile detainees could be isolated from others more easy to control, and this led to the event referred to as the Riot.
According to the sheriff, rabble rousers just wanted to cause trouble by first demanding tests and then refusing to take them when available. The detainees rioted, destroying areas of the facility, causing thousands of dollars in damage, and the deputies needed riot gear, tear gas and dogs to get control and remove the agitators.
For their part, some detainees were able to tell their attorneys that the deputies had stormed into the facility in a threatening manner and roughly rousted up the detainees in the name of testing. Some of what was happening was heard in real time by an attorney on the phone with a client, a phone that was ripped from his client’s hand and thrown down.
One side held that it was quelling a detainee uprising; the other that the deputies had stormed in and it was a matter of the detainees reacting to a threatening attack.
The advantage the sheriff had immediately after calm was restored was his ability to call a press conference to defend himself while condemning the rabble rousers and those who had been fooled by their deception into advocating for them.
He had the advantage of being the first to be able to comment, and he could choose the vocabulary that would shape the story in his favor. Remember, he is the sheriff, the protector of the people, they are “Criminal illegal aliens” threatening the good citizens of Gotham, by his telling of events then, previously, and since.
An independent investigation was obviously called for as the event took place on public property in a state/federal facility and inmate advocates and attorneys wanted redress.
While the sheriff claimed his innocence to the charges of the detainees that he, not they, had instigated the events of May 1 could be proven by a surveillance video, and as he continued to demean the detainees by carefully chosen and sometimes too obvious dog whistles while promoting the deceit that anyone who questioned him was just about as un-American as you could get, that investigation took place, and the results are in.
Simply stated, the investigation by the Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s office determined that the Sheriff’s Office violated the civil rights of federal immigration detainees while responding to a disturbance in the ICE facility.
It was determined that during the “riot”, where excessive force had been used against the detainees, there had been “various institutional failures and poor decisions by the Bristol County Sheriff Office (BCSO) leadership” and that the force used was “disproportionate to the security needs at that time.”
“Our investigation revealed that the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office violated the rights of detainees by using excessive force and by seriously risking their health and safety.”
Some of the excessive force included an overuse of pepper spray and pepper balls on detainees with underlying pulmonary and respiratory conditions, resulting in two hospitalizations.
“In the end, so much pepper spray was used that two detainees were taken to the hospital with symptoms of 2 respiratory distress, a third required the administration of emergency chest compressions to be revived, and many detainees reported breathing difficulties in the days and weeks after the May 1 Incident. Many of the detainees also were not given adequate medical attention following exposures to pepper spray, nor were they provided with a timely and sufficient opportunity to decontaminate.”
The report included a recommendation that the Department of Homeland Security terminate its partnership with the BCSO or that the Massachusetts General Court enact legislation to that effect, either way preventing the Bristol County Sheriff from housing immigration detainees or participating in federal immigration enforcement.
Violate the civil rights of the people in your care, and you should not remain in that position.
“This callous disregard for the well-being of immigration detainees is unacceptable and must be addressed through the significant reforms we outline in our report. My office expects the Sheriff’s Office to implement our recommendations to ensure that the serious systemic issues we’ve identified at the facility are remedied,”
the report stated.
The violations of the detainees’ civil rights included the use of excessive force disproportionate to what was warranted and acting with “deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm to the health of the detainees.”
Showing up with the equipment as the sheriff and his deputies did for an incident that came as a surprise showed a calculated use of force by their showing up with a variety of weapons including flash bang grenades, pepper ball launchers, pepper spray canisters, and K-9s, among other tools, and this was all used on detainees who had “exhibited calm and nonviolent behavior for at least an hour before this operation.”
“The BCSO deployed these weapons both indiscriminately upon entry and also specifically against particular detainees who were not combative, assaultive, or otherwise actively resisting staff. Informing our conclusion that the BCSO’s use of force was excessive, we identified myriad violations of the BCSO’s policies and procedures, as well as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) National Detention Standards.”
The sheriff and the deputies who follow his direction bullied their way into what is basically one large gym sized room and began pushing the detainees around.
The report also questioned why there were even K-9s involved at all.
“We are particularly troubled by the BCSO’s unlawful use of canines, lack of attempt to de-escalate the situation or otherwise avoid further conflict, and failure to warn the detainees, including those who may not have understood verbal directives because of language barriers, before using substantial force against them.”
Contradicting the sheriff’s claim that his and his deputies’ involvement only began after the detainees started their riot, it was determined that it had started with the non-violent refusal of 10 detainees to take the test when being told to gather their stuff implied it had been determined before the results of any test that they were being moved but not told where or why.
Complicating matters was that the sheriff does not employ any professional translators fulltime, parttime, or as needed, but instead uses untrained detainees as translators, so instructions, already viewed with suspicion, became more confusing.
“We do not, and cannot, question the clinical and operational judgment of BCSO staff that these particular detainees required testing and isolation, even when those detainees may have sincerely feared the conditions that they would face during their period of isolation.”
No one denies what the inmates did as the report states,
“There is also no question that some detainees engaged in destructive conduct that damaged the unit and threw plastic chairs at BCSO staff members earlier in the day.”
People want to know why.
The AG’s Office recommended adopting enhanced language access, the enhancement of reporting requirements following a calculated use of force, enhanced policies and procedures for de-escalation, adopting a diversity training program for staff, strengthening policies for housing federal immigration detainees, and retaining an auditor or consultant at the facility. That last hopefully independent and not hired by and, therefore beholden to the sheriff.
In regard to the sheriff’s boast that he runs things better than anybody, it was recommended that the state’s Department of Public Health conduct a review of the medical recordkeeping practices at the Sheriff’s Office. In light of the latest COVID updates from the CDC not being included in the protocols the sheriff claimed were up to date, the report called for a review of Bristol County Sheriff Office policies and procedures by the Executive Office of Public Safety.
Rather than defend himself on the points enumerated in her report, the sheriff claimed the AG was “demonizing” the department, again distracting from his failings by claiming criticism of him is criticism of all his staff, which it is not as the buck stops with him. He is in charge, so either his staff is doing as directed or his leadership is so weak, they ignore him.
It would appear that instead of claiming
“The motto of the left-wing activist groups, abolish-ICE advocates, Prisoners’ Legal Services and plain anti-Trumpers has always been, and continues to be, ‘Don’t let the facts interfere with your political agenda,”
The sheriff has to accept he confused us with himself when it comes to facts.
available at AMAZON.COM
