Pablo Piña D-28079
PO Box 7500 D-2 122# SHU
Crescent City, CA 95531

Jan. 6 2014

Re: Torture (Post)...

I was reading an article in the Prison Focus where an attorney who represents the SHU prisoners was defending the fact that SHU inmates were being tortured.

In a hearing in Sacramento Prison Officials argued that prisoners held in SHU were not treated badly. Nor any different than other inmates in the California prison system.

The attorney gave some examples, but those are things that have been reported, written about over and over.

She does not know just how bad it was when this place opened up. The attorney mentioned the time an inmate who was mentally ill was placed into a tub full of boiling water. Then staff or medical staff used scrub brushes to scrub him down. The water was so hot, his skin was being scrubbed off. While he screamed from being boiled.

Yeah, I know it was bad. I remember when it happened. But there were many other things that were happening. I know. Because I saw it as it happened. In some cases I was right there.

We are not allowed to talk to any of our friends or other inmates. They will write you up if you do. And of course lie about how you were being disruptive, loud, and refusing to stop when asked to.

One day I was on a chain (when being escorted to the library). They chain a group of us together in a long line. One prisoner was walking slow, and they told him to move faster. He kept walking, so they told him again.

He was leading the chain, so when a guard grabbed him and threw him to the ground, we all fell. As each fell, he brought the next one down with him. They took the lead man off the chain and dragged him into a room, and I could hear them beating the hell out of him. All the while he was handcuffed behind his back. The guards didn't realize that the reason he walked slow is so we don't step on the guy in front of us.

Was it torture? Was it discipline? Or was it guards abusing their authority? This was regular. If they didn't like you, you could expect to be targeted.

Torture can be inflicted in many ways. Just think about how the CIA and military intelligence was inflicting a variety of torture techniques on the Iraqi prisoners.

They used noise to cause sleep deprivation. They used the food portions to slowly starve the prisoners. They also used violence and intimidation to stress out the prisoners.

Here, they used those and much more. Torture can be inflicted in many ways. All it takes is a good imagination. Or a perverse imagination.

The new prison secretary was no there when all this was happening. So he can claim that CDCR does not now or has ever tortured inmates. He has no idea what is buried in the past.

CDCR has been sued every year that I know of in the past 20 years. I myself have filed many civil suits against CDCR staff. For myself and other inmates.

I've seen inmates' faces smashed into walls because they looked to the side when they were told to face the wall. I saw one inmate who was talking to another inmate told to cuff up. Means to let him handcuff you. Then open the cell door. (This was in a holding cell.) As soon as the door opened, they ran him into the back wall, breaking his nose. Then they pulled him out of the cell and began to beat him down. Beaten while they had him on the ground. One of the guards broke his arm. I will never forget how he screamed.

If this isn't torture, I don't know the definition of torture.