This is disgusting: California prison guards pepper-spray mentally ill inmates to make them take their medications, a new footage released by US federal court shows. The video that was recorded according to a California policy requires officers in the Department of Corrections to film all cell extractions was one of the six tapes displayed in court as part of a case that represents about 30,000 mentally ill prisoners in October, RT reported. Prison inmates have filed a lawsuit trying to stop the use of pepper spray on the growing population of prisoners with mental problems. One of the most disturbing of the six videos filmed at Corcoran State Prison shows a naked screaming inmate sprayed at least five times within 15 minutes. An officer is heard saying “spray him again” while about six officers overwhelm the prisoner and strap him down to a gurney. “When we order involuntary medications, the inmate is told they will receive medications whether they like it or not,” prison psychiatrist Dr. Ernest Wagner told the Los Angeles Times. Lawyers representing the large number of mentally ill prisoners against excessive force said the mere notion of pepper spraying prisoners shows the Department of Corrections is not following policies meant to help mentally ill inmates. “The mentally ill are being punished for their mental illness,” San Francisco attorney Jeffrey Bornstein said. Department of Corrections released a statement saying the process is only done to keep inmates “from harming themselves or others and to ensure that they are placed in a more appropriate mental health setting.” his sometimes consists of simply moving that prisoner to another cell. The footage documenting the extraction was the subject of debate as well. The California Department of Corrections spent months fighting to keep that documentation blocked from court. “As good a job as the attorneys and the witnesses may do in bringing out the facts for the court, that is a poor substitute for actually seeing what they are talking about,” Michael Bien, lead counsel for the inmates, told the Sacramento Bee. “In fact, citizens have a duty to look at these images, as terrible as they are. “This is happening in taxpayer-funded institutions, the inmates are residents of this state and the officers are public employees,” he continued. “People in California should see for themselves the excessive for used on seriously mentally ill patients and be able to measure the impact it has on their sense of humanity.”
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 18:59:35 +0000
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