Yet Bernales can still practice in Pennsylvania and was hired by the jail despite this resume. Then contact the Magistrates office where the alleged crime occurred and inquire about the day and time an area prosecutor is scheduled to be there. In August 2021, it came to light that Warden Harper was negotiating contracts for military-style training for jail staff, as well as purchasing more less-lethal weapons such as so-called rubber bullets (which can actually cause serious injury and even death in many circumstances, such as direct fire and close quarters that would be the case inside the jail). Warden Harper and Deputy Warden Williams appear to have known about this use of the chairs. In December 2022, an unannounced jail inspection by Allegheny County Controller Corey OConnor and Terri Klein, both members of the countys Jail Oversight Board, found numerous problems reported by folks held in the jail. Downs confirmed that the readings were taken inside the cells, not just in the recreational areas. On February 25th, 2022, a story from an anonymous Summit Food Service employee that previously worked in the jail described in a social media post how food with roaches and mice and moldy food was being kept by supervisors to be fed to people held in the jail. In late September 2021, after repeatedly refusing to give the Jail Oversight Board more information on Garcia and C-SAU training, the JOB voted to end the contract and ban Garcia from providing any further training to the county. Compared with other counties, PublicSource noted that Correctional experts PublicSource spoke to described Allegheny Countys redactions, which were made by Warden Orlando Harper, as. Officials especially on the Jail Oversight Board continue to express their frustration with, In late October 2021, reports show that the jail has been on a 231 (, ) has been the regular at the jail since roughly the start of the pandemic. The lawsuit notes that 67% of the jail population is Black, even though Black people make up only 13% of the county population. (see: https://www.publicsource.org/allegheny-county-jail-cold-temperature-complaints/) on March 30. In other words, Thomas was only in jail, without the healthcare that could have saved his life, because of a simple traffic violation. A slightly edited version is republished below for easier and wider sharing, and to better document the complaints. by Allegheny County Controller Corey OConnor and Terri Klein, both members of the countys Jail Oversight Board, found numerous problems reported by folks held in the jail. The Allegheny County Jail is looking for experienced, dynamic, and diverse employees. While the public press release is from February 2023, it refers to a memo with survey results that was sent to Warden Harper in December 2022, showing further that Harper is aware of the conditions yet continues to downplay and ignore the issues at Jail Oversight Board meetings since the new year. Byrd has been held at the jail since February 2015 and has anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and PTSD. She called the findings of the audit "damning.". Eventually, Mr. Castaphany was placed on suicide watch. On November 23rd, 2022, the Abolitionist Law Center released a statement that folks held in the jail. A group of inmates at the Allegheny County Jail have filed a federal lawsuit alleging a gross failure to care for their mental health, citing an environment in which staff belittle, abuse and mock . In July 2021, video became public of a jail officers taser attack against a handcuffed woman in a cell. The Allegheny County Council and Executive must take steps to ensure replacement leadership prioritizes human rights, social services, and humane treatment, and works with the courts and District Attorneys office to permanently reduce the jail population. (Attachments: # 1 Civil Cover Sheet, # 2 Exhibit 1 . There is 24/7 maintenance at the facility and as soon as notification is made that there is an issue, it is repaired, Downs wrote. Family only discovered this by requesting medical records from the jail and hospital. 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On March 31, 2022, during a live interview in which Warden Harper was defending against accusations of improper staffing and medical treatment at the jail, callers called in saying they too were not properly treated at Allegheny County Jail and only received medical treatment after being transferred to Butler County Jail. However, follow-ups with the complainants showed that the jail had sent police to intimidate the complainers, and interviewed them under duress without the presence of lawyers or informing complainants of their rights. describe that [Warden] Harper treats us like animals, describing incidents where folks were put under solitary as punishment for minor infractions (against the law set by a citizens referendum last May), threatened at gunpoint while showering, and all are concerned about COVID. ResidentsBusinesses He has also been placed in the restraint chair repeatedly, including once for 28 hours. On January 14th, 2022, Warden Harper held a rushed press conference to deny allegations of the complaints from the 11th. Harper also showed hostility to other questions regarding staffing and visitation at the jail, refusing to answer questions publicly saying he will only discuss privately (quite possibly a violation of Sunshine Act). Still, West said its hard to stay warm in the Allegheny County Jail. Its long overdue, said Bret Grote, the legal director for the Abolitionist Law Center, one of the organizations that filed the complaint. The jail eventually dismissed the misconduct charge. A recent video from December 2020 shows the dinner given to folks being held in the jail: it consisted of some baloney in some applesauce with a small 1oz bag of teddy grahams. On January 10th, 2022, it was reported that. The jails energy plant is expected to be completed by the end of the year, Caponi wrote. The organization said the jail should create a checklist to ensure thorough reporting. Warden Harper uses the term thug life when talking about the 100% Black group of kids currently in the Allegheny County Jail. Its absolutely intolerable and inhumane., On June 23, 2022, lawyers representing a trans-man. What did you expect to happen?. On June 28, 2022, an article from Vox about. that overcharges those in the jail and their families trying to reach their loved ones. The complaint . When local newspapers call on the jail to follow the existing law, that is a huge red flag about the problems existing at the jail. . Timothy OBrien, PACTs operations manager, said PACT is not experiencing any system issues and has not received any complaints from the county about steam services to the jail. A report commissioned by Allegheny County Jail found "no significant trends or common factors that would show a particular weakness or gap in operations" that led to 27 inmate deaths at the. According to court records pulled by the Trib, Thomas was on probation when he was pulled over by undercover officers in Pittsburghs Hill District for rolling through a stop sign on March 30. In other words, Thomas was only in jail, without the healthcare that could have saved his life, because of a simple traffic violation. he has also alienated his staff and the public, and lacks the management skills to direct the jails 560 employees. The Allegheny County Jail, too, the lawsuit continued, had the highest number of Taser and stun gun use nearly five times that of the second highest county. Officers said. The county says there is no issue with the heat and that maintenance issues are quickly addressed. Jail Oversight Board members cited that the learned about this incident from folks in the jail, not from the warden, continuing a pattern of secrecy by jail leadership including the warden. Comments on mental health included The place is very punitive mental torture. We offer training, a fantastic benefits package, pension, uniforms and additional attractive compensations. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette confirmed the misleading statistics from the jail administration resulting in joining calls for Harper to be fired, stating Whether Warden Orlando Harper was lying or simply didnt know better when he reported a false mortality rate for the Allegheny County Jail doesnt much matter. Board member Bethany Hallam, an Allegheny County councilwoman, is presumably that one member, though she isnt named in the report. Complaint Form Allegheny County District Attorney's Office Complaint Report Please be advised that a person who knowingly makes any written false or fictitious statement or files a false or fictitious report to law enforcement authorities is subject to criminal prosecution. , and one person identified as a 26-year old Black Male who has been held in solitary for NEARLY TWO YEARS (684 days at the time of the report). Those control the heat in a few cells. . They are severely understaffed, the suit says, and the administration has failed to properly train the staff they do have. Parts of the Allegheny County Jail are plagued with frigid temperatures, according to jail complaints, incarcerated people and their loved ones a problem that has been raised to jail leadership and the jail board. On January 22, 2023, Allegheny County Jail still held about 20 teenagers with no plans on releasing them. among the staff due to the lack of leadership and action from Warden Harper and the administration. Police File Complaint 5. , supposedly due to Covid, despite peoples referendum against solitary confinement. Allegations of unsafe food and health conditions have been going around for a long time yet the Warden and Jail Oversight Board have done nothing. over a week after previously reporting the issue publicly. Hansen notes that the use of force and solitary confinement in the jail is against national standards and protocols. Some details about the man who died, 74-year old Roger Millspaugh, were later released. He added that once the steam is delivered to the jails utility facility, it is then the countys responsibility to transfer the steam through the complex. Zc2' H"HCTa 00(bD@u]3~ _}w-`56s$M97l7[Q[vA9UIoin!Pu71Iy%nOe~MOF M/Uf pRj0^wwBf\dszX$-lJWFh _ WP*m{FHSA0'@ TiCh qgzZ&Q0P8Au'I:x'o3Iuwpn5c3UE1Bz p*gKa:|, Anthony Talotta, 57, is the sixth person to die in the jail in 2022. On Feb. 10, 2020, while in solitary, Mr. Howard attempted to hang himself, the lawsuit said. Elliot used a fourth floor fire escape window to flee Renewal Center 1 on Boulevard of the Allies on March 14. It is unclear at this time if those held in the jail received the required food and nutrition since the food service was not happening. According to the Post-Gazette: Deuerling was not allowed to contact the babys father when she went into labor, and her family was not allowed to be present during the birth, Mr. Grote said, adding that a sheriffs deputy stayed in the room the whole time. On July 2, 2022, the jail officer union ACPEIU shared online a report from the Allegheny County Health Department from February 2022 that. a pattern of policy violations and failure to protect people held in the jail, there are systemic and gross deficiencies in ACJs mental health care system, reported that the last medical director at ACJ has resigned, PA Spotlight reported the story of a womans fight to get out of ACJ after courts tried to keep her there for mental health reasons, American Bar Association considers strip searching of minors to be state-imposed trauma, a large number of folks held in the jail are held for technical violations. The Allegheny County Jails use of 231 lockdowns is highly unusual and puts it as an outlier compared to other jails. He was then placed in a restraint chair for eight hours, with no opportunity to wash the mace off his face. that lists numerous problems with the jail over the last few years, similar to this list. On June 2, 2022, the Abolitionist Law Center held a rally outside of the Jail Oversight Board monthly meeting to ask , The Jail has so far refused details about the deaths that have occurred in the jail and families are demanding answers. For anyone to say that this jail is normal is absolutely outrageous, said Susan McCampbell, president of Center for Innovative Public Policies. Some formerly incarcerated people said the jails heat has been an issue for years. In 2019, the NCCHC prepared a report for the jail with recommendations on suicide prevention. Police Notified 3. Harper claimed that internal investigation showed that the complaints were incorrectly reported publicly. , which the jail describes as found unresponsive. No details were given by the jail. Allegheny County has paid a $32,000 settlement to a woman who says a guard sexually assaulted her several times while she was an inmate at the Allegheny County Jail in 2015. Also in July 2021, questions arose about the. During a recent meeting, the Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board voted against a motion . PublicSource heard from over a dozen incarcerated people, family members and advocates who complained of inadequate heat at the Uptown facility, which held a daily average of 1,701 individuals in February. Due to the severe staffing shortages and lack of appropriate training, rather than provide any meaningful counseling, mental health staff simply make rounds during which they only ask patients how they are doing and whether they want to hurt themselves, the complaint said. The jail will soon be heated by steam heat through an energy plant located on its property, installed by Peoples Natural Gas and owned by the county, per. Harper claimed at the oversight board meeting that there was a plan, but not written down, leaving concern about if there really is a plan. Long wait times for healthcare and generally understaffed with overworked staff. County officials should furthermore consider how to better make use of the jails $80+ million budget by redirecting some of that funding to social services like healthcare and mental health care. Jail staff raised concerns about Talottas medical treatment at the jail and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The report continues: Talottas intellectual disability may have prevented him from participating in and understanding his own defense and trial. Compared with other counties, PublicSource noted that Correctional experts PublicSource spoke to described Allegheny Countys redactions, which were made by Warden Orlando Harper, as outside the norm and harmful to transparency. The behavior clearly outside the norm and hostile to transparency is deeply concerning, especially in light of years of other complaints against the jail as outlined above. Christopher West sleeps in two thermal shirts and two pairs of socks. On February 27, 2023, lawyers in a federal lawsuit against the jail stated that, . These include pepper spray and Taser attacks on people with severe mental health diagnoses; routine placement of people with serious mental illness and intellectual disability in solitary confinement; jailing of pregnant women who never get enough food for minor probation violations; consistent failures to provide medical and mental health treatment; and routine days-long lockdowns that keep the entire jail trapped in their cells for no reason whatsoever.. 90.5 WESA. Allegheny County Communications Director Amie Downs said the county does not comment on pending litigation. and that he was left laying unresponsive on the floor of his cell for more than an hour during a medical emergency late last year. Among the federal claims in the complaint are: failure to provide adequate mental health care; unconstitutional use of solitary confinement; excessive use of force; violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act; violations of due process rights and failure to train. The jails energy plant is expected to be completed by the end of the year, Caponi wrote. Tell the world. On June 10, 2022, Pittsburgh City-Paper reported on, of people with psychiatric disabilities in the jail. On December 11th, 2020, 15 former Allegheny County Jail, , describing impossible workloads, insufficient staffing, being directed to do tasks that they worried threatened their medical licenses and management they denounced as hostile and underqualified., In April 2019, Representative Summer Lee and others spoke out about the treatment of people with drug addictions, including the experience of, . Replacing the Warden and deputy wardens should be a first step to further jail and criminal court system reform, such as ending cash bail and sending non-violent offenders home, especially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that puts all in the jail at risk. endobj Medical staff alerted the mental health department, and when mental health staff arrived, Mr. Porter explained that he was not really suicidal but said so because that was the only way he could actually speak to someone. In August 2020, it was also made publicly known that the jails commissary contract was intentionally providing inadequate meals in order to boost more sales of overpriced commissary snacks, to which a 30% commission on sales was being given to the county, presumably going to the jail. one woman held while pregnant who was forced to give birth in the jail, an intimate view of the atrocities that make up daily life in the Allegheny County Jail, how the jail was using the Inmate Welfare Fund, the jail was profiting from a new phone contract, the jails commissary contract was intentionally providing inadequate meals, inadequate treatment and dehumanizing and unlawful conditions, inadequate mental health care and treatment, couldnt retain medical staff and ultimately quit, lawsuit was filed against the jail on behalf of 3 people with disabilities who faced brutality, some baloney in some applesauce with a small 1oz bag of teddy grahams, a continued lack of communication and transparency, torture at the jail by excessive and punitive use of restraint chairs, The warden needs to be addressed. The contractor hired to give this militarized training has himself faced criminal charges and other accusations, leading many to question the contract. The employees union representing staff at the jail then. On October 5th, 2022, it was reported by PINJ that Wilson Bernales, one of two medical doctors currently employed at the Allegheny County Jail, has. The Tribune-Review published an editorial titled Allegheny County Jail should follow the law. Later that day, the jail released a statement on social media that the lack of heat was reported on a Saturday and not fixed until Tuesday marking at least 3-4 days without heat without any explanation or details beyond calling it an unspecified heating system issue. . e .Uo*AERYUJZN8wjw37L{>1MJt7tgxZHz1]^wyQ;q9mA(IBP2$:Cfl6'L~[~#. , despite the Allegheny County Jail having the most use of force incidents in the whole state in 2020. Last updated: March 17, 2023. Also during that time, correctional officers have used force on Byrd more than 20 times. You can contact Paula by email at pward@triblive.com or via Twitter . On May 30, 2022, the jail staff union president posted on Twitter that Summit Foods was not fulfilling its contract for food service in the jail, leaving him to purchase pizza for the officers. use of lockdowns through the month of December, Abolitionist Law Center demanded the jail provide immediate emergency medical care for Kendrick, Kendrick suffered a stroke in the jail from lack of care, Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 2018, Kendrick has still not received medication and treatment, mental health treatment in the jail is shockingly substandard. On January 18, 2023, it was reported that Denzelle Kendrick was denied medications by the jail and suddenly taken off several medications theyve been on since birth without explanation. In early December 2021, days before a voter referendum banning solitary confinement is to go into effect. On February 25th, 2022, a story from an anonymous Summit Food Service employee that previously worked in the jail described in a social media post how. You will need to have some identifying information about the person you allege committed a crime (full name, date of birth, address, etc.). On March 2nd, 2022, at an Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board meeting, Warden Harper made excuses about those being held not receiving their needed medication. 1. In February, Cohen tried to create a noose from her shirt to hang herself. Alexandra Morgan-Kurtz, the managing attorney at the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, said that it is appalling that the jails top health care and mental health facilities administrators have no health care experience at all. In 2019, it said, corrections. The complaint alleged other officials and guards at ACJ were aware of Raible's "excessive history of assaulting . And if the inmates are complaining, we know the corner cells are colder, well move the inmate from the corner cell, Harper said at the Jail Oversight Board meeting in January in response to a public comment alleging the facility had no heat or hot water. 3. Eric Phillip Casteel, 62, was arrested at his Plum home Thursday and charged with three misdemeanor counts each of endangering another person, terroristic threats and simple assault. Its hard to view this as anything other than yet another superficial press stunt by the county administration to distract from the abysmal human rights record of the jail, Hallam said. found that Almost everyone surveyed (95%) reported regularly going hungry due to insufficient meal portions or inedible food. A majority of those held also reported feeling unsafe, witnessing physical abuse, widespread unsantiary conditions, and unsatisfactory access to medical care. As of February 6th, 2022, the Allegheny County Jail is still keeping folks held in lockdown, supposedly due to Covid, despite people's referendum against solitary confinement. . Also in July 2021, questions arose about the death of a man held in the jail. On February 1st, 2022, another person, now the 12th in two years, died within a week of medical problems at the jail, which the jail describes as found unresponsive. The lawsuit alleges that the jails policies under Warden Harper do not properly treat folks suffering from mental health issues and suicidal depression, leading directly to Buceks death. This is against the law voters passed. Lack of access to nutritious food and hygiene products (commisary being too expensive). On February 27, 2023, lawyers in a federal lawsuit against the jail stated that mental health treatment in the jail is shockingly substandard. While some complaints are from the current winter, others have said this has been a common issue for years. On March 14, 2022, the Pittsburgh Institute for Nonprofit Journalism released a three part series about the jail. Make a gift of $7/month or more to get yours today! An abuse of authority of such severity cannot be treated with impunity. The county is fighting a lawsuit and defending the officer. 3 0 obj Melissa Behanna, 35, of Washington County said jail officials knew Joshua Reber was sexually assaulting inmates when he worked as a corrections officer at the jail in 2015 . I furthermore call on Allegheny County elected officials to take immediate action to remove the warden and deputy wardens if they refuse to resign. Later in August 2021, incarcerated individuals signed affidavits alleging that the jail is not providing adequate food. Carefully consider if Allegheny County is the appropriate place to file for custody. Officials cite the food supplier as having a conflict of interest in its contracts with Allegheny County since it also has a contract for the commissary where it charges huge prices for snacks outside of the regular meals. . Every holiday season, the jails Inmate Welfare Fund buys every incarcerated person a thermal shirt to help keep warm. The jail is also consolidating folks held into a smaller number of pods rather than expanding to keep better distancing for Covid. In May, the lawsuit said, Byrd attempted to kill himself by overdosing on medications three times. Oh, Christmas Tree. . There were also concerns that the jail was violating a voter referendum that had banned solitary confinement by the repeated use of lockdowns through the month of December. Apply today. At the Allegheny County Jail, visitation is strictly by appointment. It alleges that there was not a full-time psychiatrist from February to August 2020 and that as of Aug. 6, there were 49 health care vacancies at the jail, making up approximately 40% of the total health care staff. On July 15th, 2022, it was reported that yet. The Allegheny County Jails use of 231 lockdowns is highly unusual and puts it as an outlier compared to other jails. , reversing its decision only after public outcry. Please note that if you submitted a compliant form electronically through the District Attorneys website, you will have to resubmit following these instructions. <>>> "We have seen evidence that people incarcerated at ACJ have suffered as the staff at best turned a blind eye and at other times assaulted individuals for manifestations of their mental illness.
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