Trill Clinton
11-15-2021, 06:03 PM
A group of protesters gathered outside the Washington, DC, Courthouse on Wednesday holding signs emblazoned with “Free Them All” and “Care Not Cages” to demand the release of detainees at the DC jail, many of whom have been awaiting trial for several (https://doc.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/doc/publication/attachments/DCDepartmentofCorrections_FactsandFigures_January2 020.pdf) months. “Our loved ones and our family members have been kept in that jail in feces and in urine. They’re being held in inhumane conditions,” Qiana Johnson, an organizer with the Black-led prison abolitionist grassroots group (https://harrietsdreams.org/) Harriet’s Wildest Dreams said to the small crowd. “Mayor after mayor, administration after administration—that jail has been the same.”
She added: “The DC jail is 87 percent (https://doc.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/doc/publication/attachments/DC%20Department%20of%20Corrections%20Facts%20and%2 0Figures%20June%202021.pdf) Black and the moment that a white person enters into that jail, they want to make change. Shame!”
Johnson was referring to a new wave of public scrutiny and outcry over the jail’s dismal conditions that she and other activists say was prompted not by the long-standing mistreatment of people of color and efforts of advocates such as herself, but rather in response to complaints (https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/08/12/accused-january-6-rioters-complain-about-conditions-in-dc-jail/) from a much smaller and whiter (https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/965472049/the-capitol-siege-the-arrested-and-their-stories) detained population: the January 6 Capitol insurrection defendants and one of their most outspoken champions, controversial Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
In mid-October, US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth called (https://www.npr.org/2021/10/13/1045696978/judge-holds-washington-d-c-jail-officials-in-contempt-in-a-jan-6-riot-case) for a Department of Justice investigation into the potential violation of the detained rioters’ civil rights and held jail officials in contempt (https://www.thedailybeast.com/furious-judge-finds-dc-jail-officials-in-contempt-for-abuse-of-jan-6-prisoner-christopher-worrell) of court for failing to turn over medical records that were necessary to approve surgery for Christopher Worrell, a defendant and member of the Proud Boys from Florida who has cancer and is being held on charges (https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/case-multi-defendant/file/1379556/download) of pepper-spraying law enforcement officers, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Judge Lamberth has since ordered (https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/03/politics/jan-6-rioter-released-unsafe-jail-conditions/index.html) Worrell, whose many claims of medical mistreatment have been characterized (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.229958/gov.uscourts.dcd.229958.117.0.pdf) by the DOJ as “unsubstantiated,” to be transferred to a different jail or released on home detention, calling the conditions at the jail deplorable (https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/03/politics/jan-6-rioter-released-unsafe-jail-conditions/index.html).
Shortly after, the US Marshals Service for the District of Columbia conducted (https://www.usmarshals.gov/news/chron/2021/110221b.htm) an “unannounced inspection” of two DC Department of Corrections (DOC) jails. They found that conditions at the Central Treatment Facility (CTF), where roughly 40 January 6 defendants are currently being held awaiting trial, didn’t call for a transfer for detainees. But according to the US Marshals assigned to the case, the Central Detention Facility, informally known as the DC jail, had “evidence (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.229958/gov.uscourts.dcd.229958.123.1.pdf) of systemic failures” and didn’t meet minimum standards of confinement. The CDF has a total population of roughly 1,200 (https://doc.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/doc/publication/attachments/October%2030th%20%20through%20November%205th%20202 1.pdf), the majority (https://doc.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/doc/publication/attachments/DC%20Department%20of%20Corrections%20Facts%20and%2 0Figures%20June%202021.pdf) of whom are Black, and are being held pretrial or serving time for misdemeanor offenses. Among the main findings were an “overpowering” smell of urine and feces, meals served cold and congealed, routine water shutdowns, and DOC staff “antagonizing detainees.” As a result of the inspection, the Marshals announced 400 people would be moved (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-jail-mess-prisoner-transfers/2021/11/06/0407f0b6-3ea8-11ec-bfad-8283439871ec_story.html) to a facility 180 miles away in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
“I am disappointed but not surprised,” Johnson told me after the rally. “It took one white person in a facility that houses 80 percent Black people for them to complain and for their voices to be heard. And now Black people are going to suffer because they’re going to be moved away from their families and from their lawyers. That’s a punishment.”
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She added: “The DC jail is 87 percent (https://doc.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/doc/publication/attachments/DC%20Department%20of%20Corrections%20Facts%20and%2 0Figures%20June%202021.pdf) Black and the moment that a white person enters into that jail, they want to make change. Shame!”
Johnson was referring to a new wave of public scrutiny and outcry over the jail’s dismal conditions that she and other activists say was prompted not by the long-standing mistreatment of people of color and efforts of advocates such as herself, but rather in response to complaints (https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/08/12/accused-january-6-rioters-complain-about-conditions-in-dc-jail/) from a much smaller and whiter (https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/965472049/the-capitol-siege-the-arrested-and-their-stories) detained population: the January 6 Capitol insurrection defendants and one of their most outspoken champions, controversial Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
In mid-October, US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth called (https://www.npr.org/2021/10/13/1045696978/judge-holds-washington-d-c-jail-officials-in-contempt-in-a-jan-6-riot-case) for a Department of Justice investigation into the potential violation of the detained rioters’ civil rights and held jail officials in contempt (https://www.thedailybeast.com/furious-judge-finds-dc-jail-officials-in-contempt-for-abuse-of-jan-6-prisoner-christopher-worrell) of court for failing to turn over medical records that were necessary to approve surgery for Christopher Worrell, a defendant and member of the Proud Boys from Florida who has cancer and is being held on charges (https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/case-multi-defendant/file/1379556/download) of pepper-spraying law enforcement officers, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Judge Lamberth has since ordered (https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/03/politics/jan-6-rioter-released-unsafe-jail-conditions/index.html) Worrell, whose many claims of medical mistreatment have been characterized (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.229958/gov.uscourts.dcd.229958.117.0.pdf) by the DOJ as “unsubstantiated,” to be transferred to a different jail or released on home detention, calling the conditions at the jail deplorable (https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/03/politics/jan-6-rioter-released-unsafe-jail-conditions/index.html).
Shortly after, the US Marshals Service for the District of Columbia conducted (https://www.usmarshals.gov/news/chron/2021/110221b.htm) an “unannounced inspection” of two DC Department of Corrections (DOC) jails. They found that conditions at the Central Treatment Facility (CTF), where roughly 40 January 6 defendants are currently being held awaiting trial, didn’t call for a transfer for detainees. But according to the US Marshals assigned to the case, the Central Detention Facility, informally known as the DC jail, had “evidence (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.229958/gov.uscourts.dcd.229958.123.1.pdf) of systemic failures” and didn’t meet minimum standards of confinement. The CDF has a total population of roughly 1,200 (https://doc.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/doc/publication/attachments/October%2030th%20%20through%20November%205th%20202 1.pdf), the majority (https://doc.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/doc/publication/attachments/DC%20Department%20of%20Corrections%20Facts%20and%2 0Figures%20June%202021.pdf) of whom are Black, and are being held pretrial or serving time for misdemeanor offenses. Among the main findings were an “overpowering” smell of urine and feces, meals served cold and congealed, routine water shutdowns, and DOC staff “antagonizing detainees.” As a result of the inspection, the Marshals announced 400 people would be moved (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-jail-mess-prisoner-transfers/2021/11/06/0407f0b6-3ea8-11ec-bfad-8283439871ec_story.html) to a facility 180 miles away in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
“I am disappointed but not surprised,” Johnson told me after the rally. “It took one white person in a facility that houses 80 percent Black people for them to complain and for their voices to be heard. And now Black people are going to suffer because they’re going to be moved away from their families and from their lawyers. That’s a punishment.”
1456659309484396544
1455918597382021125