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<h1>Voices from Solitary: “A Sort of Solitary Psychosis”</h1>
<div id="single-date" class="date">July 22, 2012</div>
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<div class="tags"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://solitarywatch.com/2012/07/22/voices-from-solitary-a-sort-of-solitary-psychosis/">http://solitarywatch.com/2012/07/22/voices-from-solitary-a-sort-of-solitary-psychosis/</a><a
href="http://solitarywatch.com/tag/utah-state-prison/" rel="tag"></a></div>
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<span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n"
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title="View all posts by Voices from Solitary" rel="author">Voices
from Solitary</a></span> </span> </div>
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<p><em>The following comes from an inmate at Utah State Prison,
Draper’s Uinta 1 facility. Uinta 1 serves as Utah’s death row,
long-term supermax, as well as the Draper institution’s disciplinary
segregation unit. The writer wrote over a period of days detailing a
particularly violent few days in his unit requiring multiple cell
extractions following several inmates covering their windows and
flooding their cells. –Sal Rodriguez</em></p>
<p><strong>Saturday</strong></p>
<p><strong>3:00 PM</strong></p>
<p>It’s around 3:00 PM Saturday here. Last night my neighbor flooded
his cell by flushing his toilet a lot with socks in toilet so it
flooded the whole section, except my cell (I plugged it off with
plastic and towel). Then another neighbor slipped in his cell on water,
hit head on sink, had seizure, and was extracted, then returned to
cell. I notice that a lot of these guys have seizures. I don’t think
this is a faked issue. You can tell a true seizure by just listening to
their head bounce off the cement floor.</p>
<p><strong>8:30 PM</strong></p>
<p>Cells 1, 2, 3, 4 have all proceeded tonight (8:30PM–it’s almost
10:30pm) to pull all their sprinklers, cover all their windows, and
flood cells by running sink and flushing toilets repeatedly. The damn
sprinklers emitted no water for some reason. This means if there was
truly a fire the captive would burn to death. They are going to fight
the SWAT teams. So pepper spray/blood/maybe death is on the roster
tonight. Water’s barely seeping into my “house” but it’s plugged off
pretty good. I don’t mean to sound like a sportscaster. This shit’s not
cool one bit. People die fucking around doing this shit.</p>
<p>A sort of solitary psychosis, no person can stop these guys.</p>
<p>Guess they are now shitting and pissing into the water. We now wait
for SWAT. Pretty soon they’ll become hip to the skip and shut off the
water. I’m going to fill juice bags with water to drink! Almost forgot.</p>
<p><strong>10:35 PM</strong></p>
<p>SWAT called cell 1 and 3 “unresponsive.” Could be hanging from the
sprinkler. Cells 2 and 4 aren’t going through with it. Negotiator
didn’t work. Just sprayed a grip of pepper spray…Cops are scared to go
in! They sprayed each cell five or six times then they both cuffed up.
Both alive. It’s over for today–or not.</p>
<p><strong>Sunday</strong></p>
<p><strong>5:00 AM</strong></p>
<p>The cops put them back in the cells at 5:00 AM on “strip cell” and
now cell 3 is going to pull his sprinkler again. The cells were soaked
when they put them back in them. They are complaining of not being able
to see from pepper spray. They were “put on a wall”–handcuffed behind
back this whole time 8:45 to 5:00 AM. Both had to just piss on
themselves. I’m tired from just watching, not as young as I used to be,
and those dudes got three/four days of strip cell to look forward to.
Hateful shit.</p>
<p>One of them had a seizure when “put on the wall.” They’ve refused
him medical attention for this. The cops haven’t fed them today. This
is what I mean by subtle abuse. The “blowers” (big fans) are on in
section. This trips temperature a good ten degrees. They do this to
make these two on strip cell suffer. The blowers are off all other
times.</p>
<p>Cells 2 and 4 are preparing to battle here Wednesday.</p>
<p><strong>Hours later</strong></p>
<p>It’s been decided. I wouldn’t say we do these things for attention.
It’s more “getting back at them the only way possible.” And the cops
have to scrub our shit, squeegee the water up. Actually work.</p>
<p><strong>8:30 PM</strong></p>
<p>Cell 4 is unresponsive. Windows covered. Guards are talking of using
“C.S.” gas, which is a grenade. We had the Sgt. admit that he cannot be
the man in charge of extraction because he used too much O.C. gas on
the two yesterday.</p>
<p><strong>9:30 PM</strong></p>
<p>The true SWAT tream came in on cell 4. Last night it was just staff
in bio-hazard suits. They deployed the gas grenade. I can’t breathe or
see right now. Whole section, all cells, are smoked up. There’s a big
fan blowing the shit, supposedly out of our section. But it’s just
blowing it around and its coming in the cells.</p>
<p><strong>3:00 AM</strong></p>
<p>Fans still blowing. Smokes still burning face, eyes, throat. Seems
like we’re in for a long smokey couple days. The CS gas is so strong it
leaves black smudges on the cell door frames. Got a pain in my left
lung or heart. The smells lingering here in my cell but can’t pinpoint
exactly where its coming from.</p>
<p><strong>Wednesday</strong></p>
<p><strong>4:45 PM</strong></p>
<p>Cell 3 is “unresponsive” again. Cell windows covered. Cells flooded.
Sprinklers pulled. SWAT team has been called again. Negotiators
negotiating. Its a standoff. They took Cell 3 to medical center after
standoff to remove staples. I’m going to try and mail this to you. I’m
tired.</p>
<p>Welcome to my world.</p>
<p><strong>8:30 PM</strong></p>
<p>Cell 2 covered window. Officers brought a stick (stick used to push
mattresses away from door) and opened cuff port to see into the cell to
make sure he isn’t dying. SWAT called and we just barely got rid of the
CS gas from earlier.</p>
<p>Cell 3 has been moved to Section 4, which has cameras in the cells.
Now we wait.</p>
<p>They CS’d him (Cell 2) and he had a seizure…Its pretty bad in here…</p>
<p><strong>Later</strong></p>
<p>You know, I didn’t realize…Now that I’ve read it all back to myself
I see…this shit isn’t cool. What is it thats caused me to become used
to all this? I remember as a boy growing up wanting to be cool with a
burly Raiders jacket and tattoos with a cool bowl cut. I wanted to
emulate an older kid named Steve. Now Steve is dead. He hung himself
with a string in his trailer closet in my hometown with a power
extension cord.</p>
<p>It’s now 1:00 AM Thursday.</p>
<p>I made a list once of all those I’ve known and grown up with and
most have died horribly and they never went through this type of hell.
My family considers me crazy. So do my captors. So do my fellow
captives. So do I at times but I must be crazy to make it. Strong crazy
not weak crazy. I’ll turn thirty in four months. Can you see the
isolation I’m drowning in?</p>
<p>I remember as a boy I loved to play in the stream behind our house.
Chase “water-skeeters.” Pile rocks and dam up the river to play in. Lie
on the grass. Build little huts out of old discarded wood. Play spin
the bottle with the neighbor girls. Drink homemade root beer and eat
homemade ice cream with my grandma.</p>
<p>I’ve never killed anyone, and I won’t. I’ve never hurt a soul and I
will not. I slipped my handcuffs while drunk and got caught with two
grams of dope and now I’m here. Punished…</p>
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