6-20-19

Dear Reader,
Hey. I hope you are well!

Today's story is an example of how this system works.

I was playing basketball my second summer on death row. It's very hot. Summertime in Florida. The heat index was over 100, and I'm playing hard. I go over to the water spicket after the first game is over. The water was barely trickling out of it.

Once again, the yard Sgt. (we'll call him Strongman) turned off the water. He'd been ordered by higher ranks to stop doing that to us.

The only way to get any water was to literally put your lips on the spicket. Not happening. Especially with how death row inmates keep popping up with hepatitis and other diseases. Sometimes even after they were personally screened, and the results were negative. I wasn't touching that spicket with my lips! :!

So, he refused our many request to turn it (the pressure) back up. So, we went to continue playing ball.

I don't know if it was the next game or the game after that, but I got dizzy and nauseous and weak. And I went down. I'm laying there on the hot concrete basketball court, fading in and out. I was helped and carried to the gate by the other death row inmates. And they declared a medical emergency on my behalf.

I was rolled down the hallway to medical. The nurse assessed me and put bags of ice on my ankles, wrist, neck, and armpits. And a cold compress on my head. And she held a cup, helping me sip ice water.

After I was fine, she informed me I had a heat stroke, and my body heat index was 120 when she first took it! For anyone who doesn't know, that's not my internal temperature but my external temperature.

Well, I wrote a grievance on him for turning off the water. You want to know how the prison remedied that situation? I'll tell you how—they denied my grievance. Well, I never received it back, and Sgt. Strongman disappeared. We all figured he was fired.

Nope!

A couple of years later, I was transferred to Union C. Inst. (the long term death row, but now it's the only death row in Florida), and my second day here, guess who pays my wing a visit? Yup! Sgt.—no, now Lieutenant Strongman! Yup! That's right! He was moved to this prison AND given a promotion!

I've grieved issues of abuse on four staff members since I've been on death row (grieved or written a statement). And all four of them were given a promotion within a year of it.

It's nothing new. It's been going on for a long time. But it's weird that it's happened to me four times since 2011. Remember my blog post from April 8 this year? Two of those officers were given a promotion, too. And so was the one threatened me about what might happen to me if I keep making noise.

Anyway—
Until next time.

Yours truly,
Doug