DARE: Incarcerated people allege abuse at ACI in response to new rules on solitary confinement
"...this was not an inmate ‘riot,’ but instead an attack on unarmed incarcerated people by correctional officers wielding weapons."
The following is a press release from DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality):
On Friday, August 25th, state and Cranston police, as well as correctional officers in tactical gear, were called to the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI) as the prison was placed in lockdown. Ryan Crowley of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections (RIDOC) issued a statement that this occurred in response to an inmate fight at the Maximum Security Building of RIDOC; Rhode Island Brotherhood of Correctional Officers (RIBCO) President Richard Ferruccio alleged that “Now we have some real serious restrictions on [solitary confinement], the inmates feel like ... they feel untouchable.”
Since then a RIDOC spokesperson issued a statement that 58 incarcerated people were involved in the incident and are facing punishment including state charges.
DARE received written statements from five different incarcerated people following the lockdown. The accounts all state that a fight did occur between two individuals. However, a correctional officer identified as “Masarone'' provoked the events that followed by shutting off phones in the yard after the incident had been resolved, while incarcerated people were talking to their loved ones. The accounts also state that the officer then threatened to “**ck [prisoners] up” and that they didn’t “know who they were **cking with” when prisoners complained about losing their calls. The officer additionally cocked his assault rifle at people in the yard, called them “n***ers,” and threatened to “shoot [their] asses.” Correctional Officers then began to assault prisoners with pepper spray, brutally cuff them, and take them to solitary confinement.
One account states, “They wildly sprayed the whole population of inmates with pepper spray, who did not have anything to do with what was going on.” In other words, incarcerated people contacting DARE insist that this was not an inmate ‘riot,’ but instead an attack on unarmed incarcerated people by correctional officers wielding weapons.
Incarcerated people stayed in the yard until 1 a.m. in the morning in protest of this abuse as well as the lack of rehabilitative programming and vocational training in Maximum Security; excessive weekend lockdowns; lack of access to the law library; and restricted visitation.
DARE has received multiple written and verbal statements from incarcerated people since August 1st when policies restricting the use of solitary confinement were put into place. Individuals have reported an increasingly hostile and abusive environment, with correctional officers abusing the use of pepper spray, complaining about the new protections against excessive use of solitary confinement, and threatening incarcerated people. One of these individuals is Douglas Huntley, who recently had a heart attack and a stent put in his heart, yet has been repeatedly pepper sprayed. Another individual was pepper sprayed after being cuffed and fell, suffering an injury that required stitches. Several individuals have also reported being reclassified and moved to buildings with higher restrictions.
DARE is demanding an external investigation into the RI Brotherhood of Correctional Officers, including immediate release of the video footage of the incident.
The ACI is no stranger to protests or incidents of abuse. Incarcerated people in Maximum Security have gone on hunger strike the last two summers, in protest of longstanding conditions of neglect and abuse in the facility. Rhode Island Federal Judge James Pettine found Max unfit for habitation over four decades ago, in 1977. His words foreshadowed the Rhode Island Department of Corrections’ massive failure to control the COVID outbreak in 2020 when 90% of the population became infected within a month and an elderly incarcerated man died. RIDOC itself acknowledges that the building is unsafe, an admission that appears in a 2016 newsletter to the Max population; a July 19, 2021 capital improvement request from RIDOC Director Patricia Coyne-Fague; and Coyne Fague’s March 2022 public testimony against restricting the use of solitary confinement.
Seven individuals have died in RIDOC custody in 2023 under the leadership of Director Wayne Salisbury, who was appointed in January. They include Brian Rodenas, who died by suicide after being subjected to solitary confinement, Dana Thomas Leyland, who also died by suicide, and Carol Pona, an elderly woman who died of stomach cancer after being held for three months awaiting a 32F probation violation hearing. RIDOC refused to disclose the names of the other two individuals, at least one of whom died by suicide. This August Derek Ashworth also passed away, allegedly due to medical neglect, as well as another individual who died by suicide. The families are waiting for the autopsy results.
In 2022, Correctional Officer Geoffrey Peters was charged with manslaughter after Timothy McQuesten committed suicide in the Intake Services Center. Peters was accused of criminal negligence in executing his care duties towards McQuesten, who was severely mentally ill.
An individual incarcerated in Maximum Security wrote to DARE: “The quality of life is hopeless here. The Budget for The R.I.D.O.C. is 260 million a year, how is it that R.I.D.O.C. Maximum Security where all the people in here are serving lengthy sentences for some of the most serious to minor offenses lack resources for rehabilitative services and vocational training programs? It would make sense that the resources should be focused mainly on these prisoners cause they are in need of most of the rehabilitation. Also, the majority of these prisoners are of color housed in Maximum Security. The legislature and people in charge have failed this population of society. It has been a recipe for disaster for a long time and needs to change. It will take taxpayers, Governor Mckee, and legislatures along with family, friends, and loved ones to fix things. You might ask how I know all this, it is because I am housed in Maximum Security.”
Direct Action for Rights and Equality has been organizing low-income families in communities of color for social, economic, and political justice since 1986.