WEST VALLEY JAIL/ San Bernardino County/ California

COMPLAINT

San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department

INTERNAL AFFAIRS Report # 02 0278

655 East Third Street

San Bernardino, CA 92415-0061

909.387.3795

The West Valley Detention Center is also known as the San Bernardino County Jail in Rancho Cucamonga. The facility is physically located at 9500 Etiwanda Avenue in Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91739.

Unit 15 is where the homeless and mentally challenged females are placed. They have no voice, and no one seems to care, and, no one is watching.

HISTORY

A history of ancient Israel is contained in mankind’s oldest book, The Bible. There was no prison or jail system mentioned here, rather the emphasis was placed on justice through a by a set of laws given in the First Five Books of the Old Testament, which meant not just punishing the perpetrator of the crime, but also compensating the victim.

 
These laws gave real justice to the innocent victim by compensating him for his loss. They also punished the criminal in a way that served as a deterrent to crime. God was obviously very much aware of the dark side of human nature when given absolute power and authority over others. http://www.cardozolawreview.com/PastIssues/PRITIKIN.WEBSITE.pdf

In a classic psychological test in 1971, ordinary college students picked at random to play guards and prisoners in a mock prison built in the basement of Stanford University. However within six days the pretend prisoners were being treated like real animals and the experiment, meant to last two weeks had to be called off. http://www.prisonexp.org/

The experimenter, Philip Zimbardo, was later quoted as saying that his experiment seemed temporarily to blot out the experiences of a lifetime, "and the ugliest, most base, pathological side of human nature surfaced."

Several experts have stressed weak leadership as key in dissolving a guard’s inhibitions and brings about the sense, "well, no one is really watching."

More than anything, some researchers say, prison atrocities are prevented by engaged managers who keep close watch. They are the ones who lay down clear standards and enforce them. When there are no standards they put guards in an extraordinary place of both menace and power, unguarded.

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

Being confined in West Valley Jail, San Bernardino County, California can only be understood as being transported into a Lynchian Nightmare filled with psychological and physical abuses, that often digress into real torture and crazy making scenarios that distort time and reality, carried on by bizarre sociopathic-type "guards" against helpless, dehumanized inmates - many homeless, mentally ill, and illegal who have no protection and no voice, and where memory retention of events, names and faces blur into a fog. It is literally a true proverbial fox guarding the hen house.

Judge Sabit, a Juvenile Court Judge had been openly honest about not knowing the law of void judgments, but also seemed almost giddy when she believed she would be making a judgment on another judge's decision on a void judgment. So, in spite of not knowing the law she proceeded to improperly retry the case, and listened to several hours of fabricated subrogated perjury that evidently made such an impression on her, that she could no longer could have discernment to know the truth from fiction.

  A judge may only look at the judgment roll record; she may not retry the case and allow for any "new testimony, etc." Federal decisions addressing void state court judgments include Kalb v. Feuerstein (1940) 308 US 433, 60 S Ct 343, 84 L ed 370; Ex parte Rowland (1882) 104 U.S. 604, 26 L.Ed. 861: "A judgment which is void upon its face, and which requires only an inspection of the judgment roll to demonstrate its wants of vitality is a dead limb upon the judicial tree, which should be lopped off..." People v. Greene, 71 Cal. 100 [16 Pac. 197, 5 Am. St. Rep. 448].

But now, on May 26, 2010 I sat in Court Room 7, at the Rancho Cucamonga Superior Court and listen as Judge Sabit, who has now been made aware of the law through a legal research team, and, must dismiss 28 counts of this bogus and void restraining order brought against me by the vindictive, retaliatory and unethical, Attorney Linda Hollenbeck, an Amerland Group ("slum lords" personified) morally corrupt lackey who is beyond having a conscience for her illegal activities, Martha Enrique, an owner of Amerland Group and a sister in evil collusion's, along with Briarwood Manor Manager, Karen Brooks -- just a dumb, and easily manipulated broad -- and "win at all costs" Deputy District Attorney Jack Liu. They all sit blankly, staring straight ahead as all the counts are read, one by one, and dismissed.

This all began when Amerland Group/Logan Property Management along with their attorney, Linda T. Hollenbeck went after me with a bogus, retaliatory eviction when I complaint about fire-safety violations, and crime on the property. When I challenged the eviction Attorney Hollenbeck, did several unethical tricks, and finally in retaliation took out two restraining orders for "Work Place Violence" CCP 527.8. Both were identical in wording and the four declarations seemed all written by one person, and even had the same spelling mistakes. The first one was thrown out immediately by a judge who knew the law for "not making their case."

But the second one, heard by Judge Rex Victor, a Juvenile Court Judge went forward. It was obvious from the beginning it was a void order as Victor did not follow the law of work place orders, and, Hollenbeck had even missed the filing date by three days, making the order automatically void.  I challenged the order as void at least twice in court. I warned Hollenbeck, Enrique, Brooks, Ochsner and the other property owners, on several occasions that the order was  void, but all ignored me and continued to have me falsely arrested for just appearing to get my mail, or to make complaints, or seek services from the apartment management. (Such void on the face judgments lack jurisdiction and can legally be ignored [by defendant] as they neither bind, nor bar anyone. Obviously a judgment, though final and on the merits, has no binding force and is subject to collateral attack if it is wholly void for lack of jurisdiction of the subject matter or person, and perhaps for excess of jurisdiction, or where it is obtained by extrinsic fraud. [Citations.]" 7 Witkin, Cal. Procedure, Judgment, § 286, p. 828.).  (Burns v. Municipal Court (1961) 195 Cal.App.2d 596, 599.)
 

As the finally count is dismissed, I smile at Mike Camber, Public Defender and exhale; it is over.

Well, then up jumps Deputy District Attorney, Jack Liu. "But there is this   Stay Away Order issued by Judge Libutti back in June and Ms. Stephens violated that by contacting  Karen Brooks, victim, and Cassandra Oseth-Ochsner, victim this last week." He presents a police report taken at Briarwood when I visited resident Carol Colgrove, and a document from an online Facebook communication Mrs. Ochsner and I had a few days ago. Brooks and Ochsner are "victims" of nothing -- it is a void restraining order, from the beginning and every count has just been dismissed.

It is me that has been the victim in all of this.

I look at Mike, and he asks softly, "Were you aware there was a stay away order?" I shake my head and mouth the word softly, "No!" It would be void anyway and no order may be put onto an already void order. (A void judgment or proceeding founded on a void judgment is void:30A Am Jur Judgments '' 43,44, 45. Henderson v. Henderson, 232 NC 380, 100 SE2d 227.) This is just more vindictive retaliation from people who don't the law, and to a judge who does not know the law.

Now Judge Sabit excitedly jumps right in, again almost giddy: "You are being incarcerated with Bail set at $150,000 (Excessive Bail: Stack v. Boyle 342 U.S. (1951) the U.S. Supreme Court, Ajudge or justice may be censured for "setting 'grossly excessive' bail and [thus] showing a 'severe attitude' toward witnesses and litigants," as the Michigan Supreme Court did to a trial judge recently : Debra Cassens Weiss, writes, "Judge Censured for Excessive Bail, Severe Attitude", ABA Journal, February 8, 2008).

Judge Sabit becomes quite rude, not hiding her bias toward me when she says with venomous implications, "Read my lips, IF YOU SHOULD MAKE BAIL...'" I am too stunned to listen to the rest. Judge Lubutti had piggy-backed this order on the already void restraining order during a hearing in June 2009 when I had made a Motion to Dismiss, and I now know that "no order made on an unlawful, void order is valid!" But this judge, by her own previous admission "Does not know the law of void orders."

I look at Mike, confused. I want to yell at him, "Speak up!" but all he says, obviously distressed,” You are going to jail." I begin to remove my jewelry, and place everything into my attaché case as the bailiffs ask me to follow them. I am grateful, well, at least there are no hand cuffs. Mike takes my belongings and says he will call my daughter to come for my car.

Judge Sabit is biased toward me. She has listened to the subronated perjury (PENAL CODE SECTION 118-131) of Karen Brooks, Cassandra Oseth-Ochsner, Frank Reyes (a convicted felon), and Judy Hyden, a woman on the cusp of Alzheimer's, all brought into the court by Attorney Linda Hollenbeck and Deputy District Attorney Jack Liu. None of their fabricated and couched testimony was in the original record of the original trial, but certainly it obviously impressed Judge Sabit, and now she can obviously have no valid, unbiased ability to be impartial.

I am back in Court Room 7,  on  June 22 to change my plea. Judge Sabit needs to recuse herself because of comments she has made on the record that proves she is bias toward me. (Code of Civil Procedures (CCP) Section (§)170.1 (a)(6)(C): “For any reason . . . A person aware of the facts might reasonably entertain a doubt that the judge would be able to be impartial.”

Judges MUST follow the law: "Court must prove on the record, all jurisdiction facts related to the jurisdiction asserted." Latana v. Hopper, 102 F. 2d 188; Chicago v. New York 37 FSupp. 150 When judges act when they do not have jurisdiction to act, or they enforce a void order (an order issued by a judge without jurisdiction), they become trespassers of the law, and are engaged in treason. The Court: Yates v. Village of Hoffman Estates, Illinois, 209 F.Supp. 757 (N.D. Ill. 1962.

Once in the back I am searched and sent down an elevator to the basement to be transported to jail. I am under a great deal of stress, and the deputy makes me walk fast and I feel the angina coming on. (I am 69, disabled, had an open heart triple-by-pass in June 2002 and now live with congestive heart failure, hypertension, sleep apnea, post traumatic stress, and stress related angina. I am homeless and have been sleeping in my car for over a year.) I feel my legs give way and I go down to the ground. The paramedics arrive and I am taken to Arrowhead Hospital where I am shackled to a bed and treatment of a sorts begins.

I suffer from congestive heart failure, sleep apnea, hypertension, and post traumatic stress, and all this is part of my medical record. I am 69 years old and have been homeless and sleeping in my car for over a year because of the illegal and retaliatory eviction of Amerland Group/Logan Property. Their reputation for evicting people who complain is legendary in well known, and documented in the media. Eight people died in fires on their properties such as the Alexandria Hotel in Los Angeles and, when people complained they were evicted by Attorney Hollenbeck. People who were mentally challenged, disabled -- in wheel chairs, and amputees, elderly -- it didn't matter they were made homeless by Amerland Group and their attorney.

Sometime later the next day I ask to make a phone call, but the hospital deputy tells me "That isn't going to happen till you get to jail." He is old and grouchy and refuses to be friendly. I am old and grouchy and so frustrated with my false incarceration; the two of us are at odds. I say, "I bet you would be happy if I were to just die." At that point he calls the nurse and doctor and tells them "She is suicidal! I am going to put her on a 5150." (That is Penal Code for” gravely mentally disabled and unable to care for self.") He puts another shackle on my other ankle, and handcuffs my hands to the bed so that I cannot move. The nurse is told to give me two injections and I am drifting in and out of a hazy reality. Sometime in the next few hours I am sent off to West Valley Detention, but I am still not totally conscious enough to be awake and aware, and hardly able to walk straight.

I am escorted through a door at the facility and notice three uniformed police officers and several deputies all standing around talking and laughing among themselves -- maybe telling jokes, or sharing war stories.

A tall very thin black female deputy yells at me,"Hey! I know you; you're that fat fucking, drunken prostitute -- here again -- and I know just what to do with you!" (I have never seen this woman in my life.)

Three black female deputies grab me and begin to race me down the hall. "Stop" I cry. I am going into angina. They make me go faster to a small room. I am out of breath and this initiates a severe angina attack that is never acknowledged or attended to. I ask for help, and remind them it is a penal code violation to deny me medical treatment. They laugh, "Yeah, what Penal Code would that be!"(California Penal Code Section 673;  Eighth Amendment constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment; Estelle v. Gamble 429 U.S. 97, 103 (1976).(1976) 429 U.S. 97.Coleman v. Schwarzenegger, No. s-90-0520 (Three-Judge Court Opinion and Order) ("Coleman Order"),ACLU National Prison Project)

I am stripped of my cloths, and my eye glasses are taken away, and I never get them back. I am given a short, heavy, sleeveless type of a jacket that is too small to completely cover me, nor give me any protection from the freezing cold floor. Although there is a toilet, there is no toilet paper, and there is nowhere to sit or lay down except on the floor. There is no call button for medical attention. My angina comes in painful ascending and descending waves of pressure and pain. The three black women taunt me from outside the window making childish faces of hate and even sticking out their tongue. They remind me of bullies on a school yard. There are people across the hall in an office like setting but they "don't see me." Every deputy who walks by does not bother to look at me and ignore my cries for help. I am invisible. The female black deputies come from time-t0-time to insult me and make fun of my very visible "ugly body,” and chide me with, "You are a danger to yourself and others so who would want to help you; you are crazy!"

I feel the energy drain from me, tears come easily and I can't think straight; I am emotionally crumbling I am dazed and losing track of time and space. I am in extreme fear I might die.

A time comes where I am dragged from the cell to the finger print and photo area. Once there my fingers, and arms are randomly, painfully twisted and the guards long finger nail are used to gauge me in the side. I am so exhausted and in so much pain two guards must hold my head up to take my LOCKDOWN PHOTO. I think I fell down, or at least my legs went weak and I remember being dragged on the floor back to the cell and dumped on the floor. I believe this is when I am kicked in my left side.

For sometime I lay on the floor and angina sets in again and I need help. No one is paying attention. I take off the vest and stuff it in the toilet and flush. The cell begins to flood. Finally I am paid attention to and I am given another vest and taken to another smaller cell that is totally enclosed -- I can't see out, and no one comes to check up on me. There is no toilet; only a hole in the floor. No toilet paper. No water. There is uneaten food thrown against the walls. Still no one offers me any medical help. (I have not been offered any food in all of the hours I have been incarcerated. It doesn't matter; I am not hungry and I won't eat for the next seven or eight days any way.)

Suddenly the small window in the lower part of the door opens. A female with a heavy accent that I can't quite grasp appears and informs me she is a psychiatrist. She tells me she is moving me to another unit because I am "a danger to myself and others." She looks at my upper arm, one of the places I was gouged with finger nails. She asks, "Did someone bite you?" "No, it where the guards gouged me with the finger nails." "Oh!" she responds, "We have told them not to do that." The window slams shut.

I don't know how long before deputies came with cloths: red pants and a yellow shirt. Along with three or four others I am walked to Unit 15. It is dark outside. My life is about to be drastically changed.

We are met by two guards: a Hispanic looking male, Deputy M, with dead dark emotionless eyes, and a young causation female, slight of build and wearing glasses. She tells me she chose to be a deputy because she "looks so cute in the uniform." Both of them are dancing around and in some crazy way they look like marionettes on strings. An older woman deputy, I believe her name is Ferman, is in charge of the POD control center and is laughing at the two deputies dancing behavior. It is like a carnival atmosphere.

I am put into a cell with a constantly running faucet. Some times the water spills over the sink onto the floor. This will be true until I leave. On the third evening I slip on the water while getting up from the toilet and fall and hit my head and arm. There is a large bump on my eyebrow and blood on both my head and arm. I call to the guards and they immediately say, "What are you doing hitting your own head on the wall -- we need to put you on suicide watch." I don't know if they ever do. I suspect because I am bleeding they must call the paramedics, and I am transported to Arrowhead Hospital. There is no serious damage, just a bad headache for a night and day. The faucet is never fixed all the while I am there.

Interestingly, once when I use the call button for help to get some nitro for the angina I am experiencing a Deputy Gonzalez answers and while I am trying to explain my needs for help she responds, "You're not crazy are you? You are fakin' it because you're afraid to be in General Population." She disconnects the line, and refuses to answer again. I get no help for the angina.

I am having trouble right now writing this as it causes me flash-backs and emotional pain to relive this horrible abusive experience. I shall now just basically summarize the ongoing events:

I am given no written rules, and no intake information. I am given two pieces of lined paper, two stamped envelopes, a pencil, and a tooth brush. I begin to document the events and write a Habeas Corpus (false imprisonment) to the court -- The staff refuses to mail.

I am kept in ongoing 24 hour lock down, except for one cold shower. I am not given any time outside my cell, and when I ask I am told "When you get your time, you will get out." My time never comes. I have requested a visit from the Chaplin. None ever comes.

One morning Deputy M. calls me out of the cell, puts handcuffs on behind my back. He goes into my cell and takes all of my notes, pencil and last envelope and walks me back into my cell and throws me down on the bed and begins to twist my fingers and wrists, and pulling my hair. It lasts a long time. I am screaming. "Now, is that what they did to you at intake," he asks, removes the cuffs and leaves the cell.

I continue to ask to make a phone call. I am continually refused. One afternoon I am called to the front to pick up papers and I go over to the phone and dial my attorney's number. "Get back to your cell!" I am told I must have a pin number. I ask the deputies "What is my pin number?" They tell me, "We never assigned you one; we don't want you calling the outside."

One day, for what seems no reason Deputy M. again calls me out of the cell, puts handcuffs on me, behind my back, extremely tight causing excruciating pain. He starts to follow me back into the cell and a pang of fear runs through me and tells me to scream, "He is going to beat me up or rape me!" He twists the handcuffs into my flesh and again I begin to scream from the horrible pain. Many of the inmates are in the Day Room eating, as is one staff member. I have all of their attention, but they look away. Staff member, Isabelle [a nurse] walks over and puts her arm around him and says, "Not this guy; he is one of our best deputies.He backs out of the cell, but leaves the cuffs on.

Suddenly I am called on the intercom that I have a conference call from my attorney, Mike Camber, Public Defender (909.948.4592) and I am pushed out of my cell with the handcuffs still cutting into what I know must be raw flesh. Deputy M. and another female deputy begin running me down the hall to a steep flight of stairs where I am pushed to quickly climb and climb. I am gasping for breath. I get to the call booth but the handcuffs are left on and I am screaming, "Michael do something..." I don't know what else I say. I can't hear Mike Camber. The guards quickly lead me away, again down the stairs where another female deputy joins them to make me go faster down the stairs. I am hysterical, and in so much pain. "Better keep going -- hate to see ya fall down these stairs..." says Deputy M. I think he might push me down the stairs. He puts me into a wheel chair in the hall and then tips it several times and I am terrified he is going to throw me out. He leads me back to my cell and removes the cuffs, and pushes me inside. I see that I am bleeding from one of my wrists but no one will answer the call button.

In just a short while a female deputy comes for me and tells me I have an attorney visit. She puts handcuffs on, not so tight but right over the raw flesh, that is still bleeding. She too makes me climb the stairs, even though their is an elevator. Zahara Tigeri, Public Defender (909.945.4296) is there. She sees the blood. And, I show her a bruise on my left side where I believe I was kicked during intake. She tells the deputy she wants me to have an X-ray. She watches as I am again made to walk the stairs. But not so fast because Zahara is watching. Once down on the main floor I am taken to the nurse’s office and she puts a light bandage over my bleeding wrist. (No medication is administered) The nurse accuses me of doing this to my self. I tell her, "My attorney wants me to have an X-ray?" The female deputy responds, "We don't take orders from Public Defenders!" No X-ray. I ask for photos. I am refused. Another male Deputy M. with sort of a lisp, walks me down the hall and tells me, "It would be too bad if you were to get hit real hard for walking so slow." I expect him to hit me at any moment. He doesn't.

This blond nurse has given herself the moniker "Nurse Ratchet." She refuses to give her real name. This is a direct reference to the sociopathic, power hungry, abusive nurse in the novel/film, "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest," which takes place in a mental hospital. She is just as cold and uncaring to the inmates,people whom she knows have no voice, and no one is watching, and no one cares.  However, she is very friendly to Deputy M -- even to the point of flirting with him, making references to "going to the beach."

I have not eaten since being admitted.

I am numb. I can't stop crying and when I knock on the window for help a black deputy comes over and begins to bang on the window from her side. She continues to bang every time I try to talk. She walks away and flips me off.

I don't know how long it is before I am taken to court. But I still have no idea of just what I am accused of doing. "Trespassing? Interfering with business??" I was at Briarwood at the request of Carol Colgrove. There is even a photo of me coming out of her apartment. I never went in, or even near the office. I was not passing out papers.  I did nothing to interfere with business. I also stopped and talked with friends playing cards in the dining room on my way out. I have an open invitation from Margaret, and others to "visit at anytime..." I bring food to the residents from my daughter's catering business.

Simply being on the property…even if one were engaged in activities "frowned upon" by the owner…does not subject one to a trespass charge absent actual obstruction or interference with the business.

If one is accused of entering someone else’s property with the intent to interfere with or obstruct the business activities conducted on that property, then one must have actually interfered with or obstructed that business. If one didn't, then one has not committed a criminal trespass! In re Wallace (1970) 3 Cal.3d 289. This case holds that Actual damage … an obstruction or interference with the property’s business…is required before a Penal Code 602 PC California criminal trespass charge may be sustained. ALSO: One cannot be charged with "trespass" if they are visiting a person on the property. It gets down to "legitimate activity" Byers v.Cathcart, 57 Cal. App. 4th 805 (1997); SEE:  Penal Code 602(o), end note 15:  People v.Wilkinson (1967)248 Cal.App.2d Supp. 906, 910:  The pertinent part reads as follows, "However, this subdivision shall not be applicable to persons engaged in lawful labor union activities…to persons on the premises who are engaging in activities protected by the California or United States Constitution, or to persons who are on the premises at the request of a resident or management.

When Karen Brooks calls the police, (five of them show up!). I remind them the restraining order is void, and I can't be trespassing as I have been invited by a resident. They don't arrest me.

I am thinking then it must be for violating a [void] Stay Away Order? I talk to the Deputy District Attorney, Marbi Burnett. We talk about movies, and the Innocent Project -- not about my case. The judge makes some statement about "Two years summary probation...and how she "understands the First Amendment, but you can't be making people fearful..." I am not understanding. I am the one in fear. I have no strength, or sense of presence to answer. I just not and agree. I have had a psychotic break with reality. Torture has taken away a piece of my humanness, and that makes it very difficult to function completely, to regain balance and a sense of being grounded; I am numb.

When I am sent back to wait to return to jail, where I will be released, I am having a very hard time breathing. I ring the call button. One of the same black deputies, the tall skinny one -- the one I believe kicked me at Intake. I I tell her, I need some  Oxygen. She slams the door and ignores me.

Back at jail my cell has two inches of water on the floor from the overflowing sink. I push the water out. Deputies come and shut off my water, leaving me only toilet water if I want a drink.

Sometime very late that night, (there is no clock to tell time) a deputy tells me they are "going to drive me home." They put me in a van. I am so fearful that I believe they are going to drive me some where and kill me. Instead they take me to the emergency room of Arrowhead Hospital. I ask to make a phone call. I am told I now have a 5150 Hold and have "no rights to make a phone call." I am given the 5150 document and see it has been written on the hold that I have been complaining about abuses. I wait hours to see a psychiatrist, who spends about twenty minutes and comes to the conclusion "You don't belong here," and releases me.

While waiting, a mentally challenged woman I recognize from Unit 15 is brought in. She has a fractured leg from either falling or being pushed down the stairs. She has been given no treatment for four days and is in terrible pain. I give her a paper with my contact information, but the deputy takes it away and tears it up.

There is more to this experience but I have a great deal of difficulty facing it.

My son comes to pick me up, and I go to one of my children's homes and sleep a restless sleep.

The next day I return to  West Valley Jail to complain and speak with Deputies Weaver, and K. Alsuwadi. They refer me to Internal Affairs, where Sgt. Williams tells me I can go to any Sheriff's Sub Station to make a report. I chose to go to Chino Hills and speak for quite some time with Sgt. Stewart. I also go and see Steve Lux, Montclair, Assistant Chief of Police.(909.621.4771) I make a visit to my psychiatrist, Nidia M. Colomer de Saca (909.465.93337), who is already treating me for Post Traumatic Stress, and then on to see a therapist at San Bernardino Mental Health in Upland to get a method for dealing with my emotions about all of this. I also contact Adult Protective Services and they assure me they will be contacting the Sheriff directly.

It will take me much time to recover, and I have more to say -- it will need to wait for a bit. However, I will make sure that something is done.

SHARON STEPHENS

PO BOX 9475

ALTA LOMA, CA 91701

760.835.8210

Stay tuned for more of this story that will not only stun you
but perhaps 

make you angry enough to speak out

CA To Look at Prison Abuse

http://wwwUS/2010/05/12/California-to-look-at-prison-abuse-racism/UPI-18511273702430/

SACRAMENTO, May 12 (UPI) -- California Senate officials say they will investigate and make public findings regarding allegations of abusive and racist treatment of prisoners.

"We are deeply concerned about the allegations of abuse and racist treatment of inmates at California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation behavior management units at several institutions covered in the recent Sacramento Bee series," Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Public Safety Committee Chairman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, wrote in a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Sacramento Bee reported Wednesday.     

"We are even more troubled ... by the accusations that investigations into these allegations were either ignored, or worse, covered up," Steinberg and Leno wrote.

The Bee alleged evidence of cruelty and brutality at High Desert State Prison in Susanville, Calif., including incidents of racial slurs, withholding of medical care and extreme isolation and deprivation at that unit and other similar California prisons.

"Prisons must be managed for the safety of staff and inmates and to rehabilitate offenders," Schwarzenegger said Tuesday. "The (corrections) department has zero tolerance for abuse and we support their vigorous and comprehensive review of the matter."

Corrections researchers urged a formal investigation into alleged abuses which apparently was suppressed.

"There appear to be charges of retaliation against employees who have attempted to bring these issues to light," Steinberg and Leno wrote. "The Senate intends to fully examine these allegations."

                                                            ALSO of Interest

http://www.2millionplus.com/

There are about 2.4 MILLION American people in prisons and jails today -- every 1 out of 100 Americans are incarcerated. That is an astonishing number of incarcerated Americans and that number is steadily rising!
We put people in prison at rates that range from about 300 % to 800 % higher than other developed nations. [Paul F. Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado.]

While some of these people clearly should be imprisoned, we also lock away thousands of Americans for nonviolent, victimless crimes, at an immense social and economic cost, and, in 1999 The US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE estimated "at least 10% of all those incarcerated are innocent." That is thousands of innocent people behind bars. Many are held in 24 hour solitary confinement. 
The main reason so many Americans are behind bars is because prisons are “Big Business” in the United States. Billions of taxpayers’ dollars are spent each year to run this business.

Barbarically long sentences are handed down to nonviolent offenders and you can bet the Parole Boards will do everything they can, be it legally or illegally, to keep those prisoners behind bars.
Once a person walks out of the prison, The Beast still follows with parole terms and lifetime registries that swipe away any chance at a job or a place to live. 

This “Big Business” is nothing less than

ORGANIZED CRIME!

This happens through:

  Legislation that has denied our Constitution to the point that it is only a piece of old paper that means nothing anymore.

  Un-ethical Law Enforcement

  Money-grabbing lazy Attorneys, both paid and court appointed

  District Attorneys who never learned how God feels about a LIE or even what a lie is, who only work for a conviction at all costs, not for truth and justice.

  Bias condescending Judges who hide evidence from the true fact finders, 

Add Poor Administration and Criminal Prison Personnel to that list and you have:

  Mentally ill being treated like less than animals.

  Medical neglect and denial

  Malnutrition and Starvation

  Dehydration

  Poisoning through water, food, and medications

  Violent Physical Abuse

  Mental Abuse

  Emotional Abuse

  Murder

  Torture

  Rape

  Mutilation

Do we want to spend our tax dollars to allow this crime to go on? Do we really want to spend our tax dollars to keep nonviolent, possibly innocent people locked away?

2.4 Million people dehumanized 

and locked away from any help!

If these facts bother you, then YOU are maybe being called to help. Join to build the 2 Million Plus Citizens in Action and let the perpetrators and the supporters of injustice know that we are watching and we demand this abomination to stop!

The Change Starts With YOU!