ASPC-Florence Deaths in Custody: Marcelo Gonzalez, 25.

While Florence was still reeling from the rape and stabbing of a teacher at ASPC-Eyman late last week, another tragedy went down on Sunday, when this happened. My condolences to the family of the Marcelo Gonzalez - this must be heartbreaking. And the family of Jonathan Williams must be distraught as well, albeit grateful that he's the one who survived.

I've received hundreds of letters from prisoners in the past year about the esclaating level of violence on the yards. Even being housed in a single cell in maximum security isn't safe: if you're a target for assault, the other guys will throw hot oil, feces-tipped darts, urine, and other things at you as you're being escorted past their cells on the way to the phone, or the shower, or rec - causing some guys to just stay in their cells 24/7. Guards have all sorts of protective gear to prevent injury, but prisoners in chains generally don't.

Staying holed up doesn't always assure one's safety, though, as the guards sometimes "accidentally" pop the cell doors to let people get assaulted. In fact, I've heard from prisoners across the system that it's also not uncommon for officers to turn the other way when they know a hit is about to go down - or just take a bit longer than necessary getting there to intervene. That seems to be especially the case if the prisoner has been charged with assaulting an officer at any time along the way (the guy who survived this fight was apparently just charged with assaulting staff in October). 

I dont know how someone had the time and ability - perhaps tools - to cut through that fence and be prepared with a weapon to attack the other party, who only the guards should have known would be placed there next to him, without there being officer complicity...I've seen some guys get hurt pretty seriously by the DOC staff getting their revenge.  Though I guess it's possible that this maximum security facility in the center of prison valley would be so lax that it wouldn't take that much for one prisoner to bust through the fence keeping him contained with his bare hands.

It's also interesting that Jonathan Williams (search 222798) is Black and the other guy (search 204980) was Mexican American - usually the races take care of their own, so to speak. There are serious implications if you attack someone of another race - especially if you kill them - without the gang's or yard leader's permission - you could start a race riot that way.  

But that's really just on the lower security yards where prisoners are in dorms or share large common areas and times, like dining and recreation. It's harder to "run" a maximum security yard because everyone is in lockdown, communication and movement is restricted, staff have more control than on the lower custody yards, and so on. Florence Central is max lockdown - they subsist on no meaningful stimulation or programs and a "sedentary diet" that seems to consist mostly of sack lunches eaten alone in their cells. So a cross-racial hit like that to settle a personal grievance or one the assailant's gang or race had with the target isn't out of the question - it's just usually that the whites kill the whites and so on.

Anyway, its really hard to tell what happened here beyond what the DOC has to say (which is generally a whitewash, people). If anyone out there has first hand info on this incident, please contact me. Peggy Plews / 480-580-6807 / arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com.

If your loved one is trying to get protective custody because they are in particular danger, by the way, access these links, and contact me.

AZ DOC Protective Custody Battles: Surviving the fight. (August 29, 2013)

AZ DOC's Protective Custody fight: tend to both body and soul. (April 12, 2013)

If you are about to enter prison and are freaking out, hit this link, then contact me.

ASPC-Florence Death in Custody: Karot Phothong, 37.

Condolences to this man's family. Please contact the ACLU of Arizona about your loved one's death; they are filing a class action suit against the state for medical and psychiatric neglect of prisoners. One big concern has been the doubling of the suicide rate under the current administration. Violence has skyrocketed as well. 

Feel free to contact me anytime if you wish to organize with other families who have had similar experiences with the Arizona Department of Corrections, or if you wish to share more of Karot's story. 

Finally, suicide can be a devastating thing to survive, whatever the circumstances surrounding it. You might want to check out Survivors of Suicide, Tucson  for support coping with your loss. For more information about them, contact the executive director, Tyler Woods at 520-861-663.

Take care,

Peggy Plews 

(arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com / 480-580-6807).

Karot Phothong 

 -----------------------------

ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

1601 W. JEFFERSON 

PHOENIX, ARIZONA 85007 

(602) 542-3133
www.azcorrections.gov

JANICE K. BREWER, GOVERNOR                  CHARLES L. RYAN, DIRECTOR
 

NEWS RELEASE 

For more information contact: Bill Lamoreaux
blamorea@azcorrections.gov

January 31, 2012

Inmate Death Notification

Florence, Az. – Inmate Karot Phothong, 37, ADC #98842, was found unresponsive in his housing unit Saturday. He was pronounced dead from a possible suicide after medical responders attempted life saving measures.

Phothong, sentenced out of Pima County, was serving 12 years for aggravated assault. He came to ADC Sept. 9, 2005 and was held at the Central Unit, ASPC-Florence.

The death is under investigation by the department.

-----------------

Deaths in Custody: Joshua Haynes

Another death under investigation -

Condolences to Joshua's loved ones.

To the rest of you guys inside: please hang in there and look out for each other...I'm sure that help is on the way, I just don't know who it will be or how they'll help, but you need to outlive your sentences, in the meantime, if you can. This fellow was only doing six years (which seems a lot for burglary...)

I'll post an update on the cause of death once I get it. If anyone knows this prisoner and can fill in the blanks so we can know him better - and find out what really happened to him - please feel free to contact me at 480-580-6807 or prisonabolitionist@gmail.com

- Peggy Plews





























UPDATE (9/28/2011): Joshua's obituary came in today from a reader. Our condolences, again, to his loved ones.


Joshua Michael Haynes

Phoenix, AZ - Joshua Michael Haynes, 38, formerly of Springfield, lost his battle with cancer on August 25, 2011...
A celebration of Josh's life is planned for a future date.

Suicide/homicide rates skyrocket at AZ Department of Corrections

I obtained prisoner death records last week from the AZ Department of Corrections, and the stats on suicides and homicides since Brewer took office are mind-boggling: they're twice the rate as they were when Janet was governor; this fiscal year (beginning July 2010) the suicides are on track for being three times the annual rate.

In no instance of the recent suicides has there been documentation that ADC staff had any culpability - though I've had more than one family member tell me that their mentally ill loved one had been taken off of their psychiatric medications in prisons before their suicide or homicide. That sounds to me like a pattern of institutional neglect.

Anthony Lester's death remains a mystery to me, by the way - the ADC record detailing his death lists his injuries as self-inflicted (his jugular, his right wrist, and his leg were all cut with a razor) , but a document compiling the deaths for the year calls it a homicide. Tony's family was told it was a suicide - a "highly preventable" one, which they tried to warn the ADC he was at risk for. They have other information suggesting that he believed he was in imminent danger from a gang, though. Until I get confirmation to the contrary, I'm leaving him in the suicide category.

Tony suffered from schizophrenia, and was sentenced to more than a decade in prison due to two women being slightly injured trying to prevent him from cutting his throat (both required band-aids at the scene) during a psychotic episode. He had to be restored to sanity before he could go on trial, of course.

That's par for Maricopa County's treatment of people with mental illness who needed psychiatric hospitalization before or at the time of their "crime". If I could sick the DOJ on every responsible judge and prosecuting attorney, I would, because that's a violation of the Olmstead Decision, as far as I'm concerned. The Olmstead Decision was a Supreme Court verdict that determined that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires states to deinstitutionalize and place people with disabilities in the least restrictive setting possible.

Arizona, after 20 years of Arnold v. Sarn litigation, is still underserving the seriously mentally ill in the community. Here they're just criminally prosecuted for the symptoms of their illness and thrown into the most restrictive setting possible - state prison (often maximum security) - largely because the state lacks adequate outpatient and inpatient alternatives for individuals at risk of harming themselves or others (we spend it all on corrections instead. If ADC Director Ryan had any courage, he'd call that what it is and tell the state where to put their money and the courts where to stuff their convictions).

Why else would a judge give a man with schizophrenia three years for climbing a utility tower in a thunderstorm to be closer to God? Why would he even be prosecuted for that in the first place? I think they actually believed they were protecting him from himself. Sadly, Shannon Palmer ended up being murdered by his cellmate two years in.

The deaths by "natural causes" are also extremely young - go to the ADC's website, under ADC in the News, for death notices. There's an archive on that page, too. I suspect that it's complications from the effects of the Hep C virus that's killing people so young inside. I'll be analyzing the documents I obtained further to confirm that, and post it when I compile it all.

Here are the links for the APW posts about the more recent suicides:

Special Management Unit: Prisoner suicide at ASPC Eyman (11/4) - James Galloway

Prison suicide and gangs at Florence Central (10/01) - Duron Cunningham, Rosario Rodriguez-Bojorquez


Additionally, I missed a couple of suicides in my compilation that I didn't have info on until now:

Douglas Nunn 33 (8/29/09) - ASPC-Florence/Central

Patricia Velez 25 (4/28/10) - ASPC-Perryville/Lumley

All 3 of the women who have killed themselves in the past year and a half hung themselves and were housed in Lumley, where the maximum security yard is. All three were in their 20s. I don't know if Patricia had a mental illness or not: a psychological report was sealed by the court when she was sentenced to 7.5 years for aggravated assault and fleeing a law enforcement vehicle. Geshell and Sasha, the other two women from Lumley who killed themselves, did have evidence of a serious mental illness when sentenced.

Two of the men who killed themselves recently were both from ASPC-Florence/Central. The largest number of male suicides in any one prison have occurred at ASPC-Eyman, however.

Sometime in the next couple of days I'll break down the suicides and homicides by race and age, and tell you how they compare to stats for the overall prison population, as well as to rates in the general population. It seems to me that if all the violence boiled down to a gang war, the Aryan Brotherhood is winning.