More on Nevada's Death Row

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I'm not entirely sure what to make of this article , except perhaps that it's good the "mainstream media" has acknowledged other voices (and witnesses) weighing in someplace, and is picking up that the Nevada activists are calling for a federal investigation. The rest of the story is kind of pointless - they don't even report what the letters from prisoners have been saying - in fact the reporter seems to almost justify Redman's demise.

Redman's crimes should be irrelevant to the way he was reportedly tormented in his final hours: we have minimal standards of humanity by which we treat even the worst among us, or else we become too quickly like them. But his history there explains why the guards would be so contemptuous of him - making the version of his death told by prisoners even more credible. Clearly there are a lot of folks in the Ely area who disagree with that notion and think Redman got what was coming to him; I guess they'd have to in order to fully embrace the prison culture that so clearly degrades them. Sounds like everyone with a badge and uniform in Ely has already been acquitted, and the "investigation" is hardly even underway.

 

The feds should be in on this one - no sign so far. Guess they have too many migrants to round up.

Ely State Prison, Nevada Department of Corrections

October, 2009.

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Prison reform groups call for federal investigation after former Ripley man’s suicide in his Nevada death row cell

By Greg Matics

The Jackson Star-News

Thu Dec 10, 2009, 12:13 PM EST

Ely, NV - 

Prison reform groups are calling for a federal investigation in the aftermath of a former Ripley man’s suicide in his death row cell at a Nevada prison.

Timothy L. Redmen (AKA Timothy Lee Redman), 45, hanged himself with his shoelaces in his cell at Ely State Prison on November 18 to culminate a standoff with guards.

Reports allege Redmen had barricaded and jammed his cell door preventing its opening and brandished a “shank (a homemade weapon composed of a sharpened metal rod with a bedsheet handle)” in an altercation with guards.

However, additional reports published online by prison reform groups on web-sites like Prison Abolitionist, Make the Walls Transparent, Nevada Prison Watch and Nevada Prison Voice claim information received from fellow inmates at the maximum security prison at Ely, Nevada, alleging that prison guards emptied several canisters of chemical mace into Redmen’s cell over a two-hour period of “torture” prior to him taking his own life and further allege they did nothing to prevent his suicide.

In the aftermath, the cell door had to be removed by maintenance workers for a cororner to get to Redmen and for his body to be removed from the  cell.

An autopsy was ordered performed and an investigation initiated.

A three-judge panel sentenced Redman to death in 1990 for the brutal murder of former West Virginian Max Biederman, then of North Carolina. Biederman was vacationing in Las Vegas when his path fatally crossed that of Redman.

Biederman was shot by Redman near a low budget motel. Redman was preparing to flee the scene when he discovered Biederman still alive. He then fired more bullets into his victim, mutilated his face, pried out teeth and cut off his hands. Investigators believed Redman brutalizing the corpse was an attempt to conseal the identity of his victim.

Biederman’s severed hands were later found along a highway to Idaho where Redman and a junvenile female companion were pulled over for speeding in Biederman’s stolen motor home.

Redman was arraigned on charges of first degree murder, robbery and a use of a deadly weapon enhancement in Clark County, Nevada, District Court on March 21, 1990. He was convicted of all charges on November 28, 1990 after a jury tial, A three-judge panel sentenced Redman to death by lethal injection for the murder and added two, 15-year prison terms—one each for for robbery and for the use of a deadly weapon enhancement.

Former Jackson County Deputy Sheriff Paul Clark remembers Redman all too well. Clark was a Jackson County Jail corrections officer and deputy when he was assaulted and beaten by Redman and two other jail inmates during an escape from the courthouse lockup. Redman was in jail for breaking and entering at the time of the escape.

Clark was moving the prisoners from one side of the jail to the other when the trio jumped him.

Clark said Redman had a knife he had made from a Bic pen and a razor blade from a disposable razor. After beating him, the inmates dragged Clark into a small air conditioning room, took his keys and escaped.

Redman was the last of three to be recaptured. He was returned to the jail three days after the escape by a family member.

Clark was one of the Jackson County witnesses who testified about Redman’s violent past at his murder trial and again at his sentencing hearing.

Redman had a considerable list of criminal activity in Jackson County aside from his jail break. He was charged with assault and/or battery and carrying or concealing a dangerous weapon on four occasions.

Redman’s direct appeal of his death sentence was denied by the Nevada Supreme Court in March, 1992. A subsequent federal appeal was denied in in October, 1992.

Since then, Redman was charged with beating two prison guards with a deadly weapon in March, 1993. He was tried, convicted of two counts of battery by a prisoner with a deadly weapon and sentenced to two more consecutive 20-year prison terms.

Subsequent appeals of his convictions and death sentence were denied—the last one by the Nevada Supreme Court this summer.

How Life Ends on Nevada's Death Row

 

Something's going on in Nevada, folks. This is symptomatic of the bad stuff that's been going down there for awhile - they desperately need transparency. Guards and administrators routinely taunt, abuse, neglect, disrupt, and mess with prisoners there. Whatever the sentence or the crime, we have as a society some minimum standards for how prisoners should be treated, and the way Tim Redman spent his last few hours violates all of them - including the one that provides for a process by which prisoners are finally executed. 

No one wants to believe the prisoners (or even question them as witnesses) when this kind of thing happens, in part because it makes the rest of us wonder if we're punishing the right people the right way, and also because it makes us responsible for demanding that something be done about it. Who wants to go out on a limb for justice for a dead murderer? 

It's not just about Redman, though. It's about all Nevada's prisoners. Spend some time at the activist websites below - prisoner abuse and neglect is why they came into being. AZ Prison Watch came about because of Marcia's death. We read again and again about how corrupt and malevolent some guards are, and it seems that even the ones who aren't overtly malicious end up complicit when sucked into the culture. How is it that 16 people ended up being responsible for killing Marcia Powell over the course of 4 hours? I doubt any of them had that intent in mind. 

Anyway, the feds should be on top of this - but probably aren't. They should be placing agents in all the Nevada prisons themselves to weed the garbage out (starting at the top). If they fail to pursue an investigation of Tim Redman's death with all the testimony contradicting the official account of what transpired, then they will share responsibility for further abuse and negligence at Nevada's Department of Corrections.

You know, it's funny how the guards had a different story from the inmates when Marcia Powell died, too - how 20 inmates heard her ask for water and get refused, while every single guard (except maybe two?) swore she had water. I believe the prisoners in both cases - they would be crazy to make something up that may involve perjury and would set them up for treatment of a similar nature to what Marcia and Tim got. Only a compelling reason - perhaps survival, since they are all subject to abuse as well - would have caused them to take that risk to speak up. Survival, and a demand for justice for those with no voice - other prisoners.

This story is being written by folks at Make the Walls Transparent, who are in direct contact with prisoners at Ely prison. It's also being followed on Nevada Prison Watch, who first tipped us off to what was happening.

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Lies, Corruption, and Death in the Nevada Department of Corrections 

Posted By MTWT - Lucy On November 29, 2009 @ 12:08 pm

Newspapers within Nevada picked up the story about Timothy Redman’s death and, as we at MTWT and others, knew their “journalism” would be in the defense of the NDOC and would not be the truth in its entirety. The NDOC gives the public what they want us to hear, what they want us to think is the truth. The employees of the NDOC don’t want the public to know what goes on behind the walls of these prisons. The truth will never be heard unless a complete and total federal investigation into the death of Mr. Redman is done. Even then we have to wonder if the entire truth will be told. It is the nature of the NDOC to start a cover-up as soon as an incident happens.

Some of the local newspapers wrote short articles to satisfy the public because of what our site and other sites have published in aftermath of Mr. Redman’s death. People wanted to hear the “official” story. The “official” story has not been touched in the four articles that I have read. All we see in these articles are reporters, Sheriff Watts, and Suzanne Pardee giving the spin we knew would be published. 

Does anyone really think that the Warden, the administrative staff, or the guards are going to tell you, “Yes we sprayed Mr. Redman with 5 or 6 large cans of pepper spray in a locked cell that had no ventilation”. “Yes, he said to us that if we didn’t stop he was going to hang himself”. “Yes, with even knowing he was telling us this we continued to spray him with mace.” “Yes, we saw him hang himself and instead of trying to stop him, we sprayed him again”. No! They are going to tell you just what they want you to hear: Mr. Redman brandished a prison made “shank” and barricaded his door so no one could get in to stop him from hanging himself.

When the stories appeared in the Las Vegas Sun, The Reno Gazette Journal, Las Vegas Review Journal, Nevada Appeal, and The Ely Times we weren’t at all shocked they said an investigation is pending but at the same time, only one paper mentioned the pepper spray used to start the wheels in motion that caused a man to die. We were also not shocked when they focused on the crime that Mr. Redman was convicted of instead of talking about and asking important questions that the public would like to know the answers to...

(finish at Make the Walls Transparent)

DOJ - Investigate Death of Timothy Redman

Here's the latest on Timothy Redman from Nevada's Ely state prison, as taken from the Nevada Prison Watch website (which is receiving updates from Make the Walls Transparent, linked below):
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2009/11/22

Update on Timothy Redman's violent death

Tim, early 2009 (courtesy of Tim's family)

Hereby more updates on Make the Walls Transparent, dated November 23rd 2009.

MTWT has received mail from inmates at ESP and their family members regarding the 11-18-09 death of Timothy Redman on unit 3-B.

One inmate tells us, “Investigator General Thompson was on the unit to “investigate” but he never once asked any inmate what they had seen in the hours and minutes leading to Mr. Redman’s death,” even though, clearly those inmates are the eye-witnesses, not E.K. McDaniel and Debra Brooks, who both came on the unit after the death and stood around laughing about it.

One inmate’s sister received a letter from her brother that said: “The cops let this guy hang himself and watched him do it and did nothing to help him but to keep gassing him after he was hanging.” Brooks was here at his door laughing at it and so was E.K. McDaniel. The cops even came from Ely. It was a big deal and no one wants to let anyone get to a phone to report what happened here yesterday”.

On The Ely Times, someone who calls himself Winsan, and who obviously works for the prison stated that officers “…tried to save this inmate’s life…by using any means available to subdue and incapacitate the inmate when trying to save his life and protect others.” No one disputes that Redman was locked in his cell. Who were the officers trying to protect? Certainly not Redman. And certainly not the other inmates all locked in their cells and breathing in the poison being sprayed.

Winsan’s claim that the guards used any means available to try to save Redman’s life rings hollow. All the reports from inmates tell a different story. In reality, officers were able to reach the inmate, but chose not to – or more realistically – were ordered not to, according to one officer who alleges that E.K. McDaniel ordered them not to enter the cell.

What possible reason can there be to use 5,6 or 7 hairspray-sized cans of chemical agent on a man locked in a tiny cell with no ventilation? How did Mr. Redman even have the strength to hang himself after being poisoned for hours on end? And an even more pressing question: Whose safety were these officers trying to protect by spraying chemical agent for hours on end?

This incident is hard to stomach, even for some of the the guards hardened by working at possibly the most abusive prison in the country. It is understandable that they want to believe this incident did not take place. It is understandable that citizens want to believe this also, especially considering that as citizens, we are taught to hold a special level of trust for law enforcement. It is unfortunate, but the sooner we face reality and get a federal investigation regarding this incident and many other incidents of great cruelty and abuse, even death, at Ely State Prison, the sooner we will be able to trust our public servants. Meanwhile, the lies and cover-ups at ESP continue unabated.

From Make the Walls Transparent: