January 6 Defendants Carried Out of Jail Cells on Stretchers

Central Detention Facility in Washington, DC. Photo courtesy of HillRag.

 

The treatment of those captured on January 6, now prisoners in the Central Detention Facility in Washington, DC, most which are believed to be misdemeanors, is under scrutiny following removal of the defendants from their cells “on stretchers”. This, according to a court filing by family members of Kelly Meggs.

A Federal Court document said that jail guards attacked the prisoners and sprayed “some kind of mace or pepper spray” for refusal to wear a mask. The document continued that “This created a disturbance and the wing was locked down at 10 AM.”

The document filed goes on to say that multiple defendants were taken out on stretchers for medical treatment.

The family told lawyer Jonathon Moseley, that:

They sprayed mace or some type of gas at an inmate and kept missing so it went into an intake that fed into other cells and the lady with the key left because she didn’t like the gas, so the inmates in the cells who were being fed the gas from that intake were locked in for like 15 minutes while it was going into their rooms and they couldn’t see/breathe.

 

The document said that the prison guards filled the jail cell with chemical spray after they sprayed the chemical into the ventilation system. After that those same guards beat the defendants, now prisoners, who were gasping for air to breathe.

The Epoch Times reported that inspectors discovered that prison guards inspectors had “routinely shut off the water as punishment, while multiple cells had “large amounts of standing human sewage (urine and feces) in the toilets”. The Epoch Times also reported that the guards antagonized detainees with food, where they were observed serving “cold and congealed” food while others were served hot meals.

Extra security measures have been in place since at the jail January 6th, due to the detention of prisoners accused of participating in the US Capitol breach being brought into the jail.

Over 500 defendants have been arrested since January 6th for their participation in the Capitol breach. Since their imprisonment the detainees have suffered the injustice of being held in solitary confinement 23 hours each day supposedly for their own safety.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said “I don’t believe in solitary confinement for extended periods of time for anyone”. Some have labeled those being held in solitary confinement as political prisoners suffering torture under a tyrannical government.

 

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth released defendant Christopher Worrell from pretrial custody due lack of proper medical care he received from the jail. In October the judge held Washington jail officials in contempt for the mistreatment of defendants held in their jail referring the incident over to Department of Justice officials. U.S. Marshals deemed the facilities “do not meet the minimum standards of confinement.”

 

As a side note, one of the things noted in papers filed with the court are that Worrell is a “racist”. This accusation due to the fact that he used the “okay” gesture which is in recent days being called a symbol of “white supremacy”, this for a symbol that people both black and white have used in this country for ages. For using that symbol and other accusations he was labeled dangerous and disingenuous. This writer is still waiting for an accurate definition of the term “racist”, as it seems to change arbitrarily.

The Washington Post reported a letter from acting U.S. Marshal Lamont Ruffin to the director of the D.C. Department of Corrections. In that letter Ruffin said investigators conducting a surprise inspection of the D.C. Jail on the week of October 18 found that it appeared “water and food were withheld from inmates as punishment”. The Marshalls also observed “medical neglect”.

Marshall Ruffin wrote that “The water in many of the cells within South 1 and North 1 had been shut off for days, inhibiting detainees from drinking water, washing hands, or flushing toilets”. He observed the toilets were filled with standing sewage and “The smell of urine and feces was overpowering in several areas”.

As a result of the horrid conditions of Washington’s Central Treatment Facility, over 400 detainees from the January 6th US Capitol event were ordered to be removed from the jail. Those prisoners have been sent to Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

 

After initially being denied admittance to the jail, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she witnessed that January 6 Capitol detainees were receiving “very poor food” and “virtually no medical care” in the jail.

 

Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson called the D.C. lockup “one of the foulest detention centers in the country… a truly repulsive, mismanaged place.” The jail is in such disarray that detainees held in the facility have died from the mismanagement and poor conditions.

Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, Director Avis Buchanan, stated:

The inhumane conditions have included long-term solitary confinement for people with no disciplinary issues, lack of running water, full illumination of cells for 24-hours per day resulting in sleep deprivation, cells soiled with feces and blood, lack of air conditioning during the summer, and heat during the winter, lack of proper medical care, failure to provide mental health treatment, and physical and mental abuse by correctional officers of people in their custody.

 

On November 10, the U.S. Marshals Service and the D.C. Department of Corrections entered into a memorandum of understanding that outlined plans to improve conditions at the jail. Neither party agreed that they would refrain from issuing any public statement or speaking to the media about the agreement without consent from the other party.

 

Michael Reed is Editor and Publisher of The Standard newspaper, print and online, and TheStandardSC YouTube channel where many video reports may be found. Please share freely and donate to The Standard on this page to assure the continued availability of news that is ignored too often by the dominant media.

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