Cassius Methyl

August 24, 2015

(ANTIMEDIA) New York, NY – In April of 2015, Samuel Harrell died after receiving a beating behind bars at Fishkill Correctional Facility, a medium security penitentiary about 60 miles from New York City which is known for abusing inmates.

Harrell was a black man with a history of “erratic behavior,” allegedly linked to bipolar disorder. There were antidepressants in his system when he died. Initially, the prison guards claimed he died of “an overdose of synthetic marijuana.” Contrary to their claims, the death was recently ruled a homicide. Further, there was no K2 — synthetic marijuana — or any other illicit drugs in his system.

He died of cardiac arrhythmia, said the autopsy report, “following physical altercation with corrections officers.” The examination noted cuts and bruises to his head and extremities.

What is being called the “beat up squad” apparently decided to unleash its rage on Harrell when he claimed he was going home but actually had more time left to serve. He was apparently in a delusional state of mind, a condition some patients suffer while taking antidepressants.

“Like he was a trampoline, they were jumping on him,” said Edwin Pearson, one of many inmates who witnessed it.

The guards took it so far as far to throw the man down a staircase while exclaiming racial slurs, according to inmate accounts. One inmate wrote that he saw him lying, “bent in an impossible position…His eyes were open, but they weren’t looking at anything.”

After all of this, correctional officers called an ambulance but mentioned nothing about the beating. They simply claimed that it was likely that he overdosed on K2. The man died at 10:19 p.m. at St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital.

Harrell’s case is not an isolated one. Multiple testimonies from inmates and a report from the Correctional Association of New York describe a group of rogue officers at Fishkill who routinely assault people.

According to the New York Times “Five weeks before Mr. Harrell’s death, David Martinez, an inmate in Building 21 who was serving time for attempted murder, among other charges, filed a grievance saying he was being assaulted and harassed by officers, and asking that the officers on that shift ‘be split up.’ In a subsequent letter, he described them as ‘a group of rogue officers’ who ‘go around beating up people.’”

Adding fuel to the fiery scandal, Fishkill superintendent William J. Connolly resigned this month. Additionally, a report was filed in 2013 by the Correctional Association of New York. It described “harassment and provocation by officers working in Building 21 from 3 to 11 p.m.” This is the same timeframe during which Harrell was killed. Though the Correctional Association of New York wrote this report, it failed to stop the abuse.

While the problem of brutality in prisons is monumental, Harrell’s story highlights another serious issue. Forced medication in prison is a nightmare that few outside the prison population even know about, let alone understand.

Since a Supreme Court ruling in 1990, the practice of forced medication has expanded. Meanwhile, mentally ill individuals increasingly fill prisons. In 2006, “...705,600 mentally ill adults were incarcerated in state prisons, 78,800 in federal prisons and 479,900 in local jails,” according to government data. Rather than receiving treatment from the “mental health system,” inmates — under the guise of receiving care — endure involuntary treatment or forced medication, which had increased without being evaluated for its efficacy or morality until recently.

The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law has discussed the issue: “Well known to both mental health professionals and the public is the dramatic increase in the number of prison inmates in the United States over the past four decades.”

“Yet, until now, 25 years after the Harper ruling was handed down, there has not been a published study of how well the involuntary administration of antipsychotic medications works to improve functioning and to reduce violence in mentally ill prison populations,” the organization said.

This preliminary study showed a decrease in disciplinary actions in forcefully medicated prisoners over the course of a year in mentally ill New Jersey subjects. However, the study showed that there was no decrease in inpatient days for these prisoners. Other aspects the study did not touch on are the moral and ethical implications of medicating people against their will.

Regardless of the recent study, what is clear is that there are abuses committed every day behind cell walls that we don’t see. Forced medication, beatings, and killings are a part of daily life for many prisoners in the United States. Treatment is so severe, in fact, that an Irish judge recently refused to extradite a terror suspect to the United States, arguing that doing so would constitute “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Only by giving thought, paying attention, and refusing to tolerate the treatment of millions behind bars in America can we pave a path for any chance of tangible solutions toward changing this abusive system.

This article (Prison Guards Beat Mentally Ill Man to Death, Tried to Blame It on Synthetic Weed) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Cassius Methyl and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

Cassius Methyl joined Anti-Media as an independent journalist in March of 2014. His topics of interest include thinking, creating a future, deep spirituality, and astrology. He resides in Sacramento, California. Learn more about Methyl here!