Black Inmates Sue Michigan Jail

<strong><center>Black Inmates Sue Michigan Jail</center></strong><br>
by JoNina M. Abron<br><br>
(Battle Creek, Mich.) - A black anti-police brutality activist who is a prisoner at the county jail here has been joined by 18 other predominantly black inmates in a lawsuit that charges jail officials with ethnic intimidation and racial intolerance.<br><br>
Robert C. Mitchell III prepared the $1.1 million civil rights lawsuit that was filed in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids against the Calhoun County Correctional Facility, Sheriff Allen L. Byam, seven members of his staff and the county government. The sheriff's department runs the correctional facility.<br><br>
According to the lawsuit, several white correctional officers routinely use racial epithets when speaking to or about black inmates. The lawsuit also charges that black inmates are typically placed in lockdown, "the hole," without being told the reason for the detention or how long it will last. The policies regarding lockdown violate the constitutional rights of the inmates, the lawsuit contends.
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Byam has allowed "a racially hostile environment to permeate" the correctional facility, according to the Rev. Mary Gault, a local civil rights activist. At a press conference announcing the lawsuit, Gault said that correctional officers have repeatedly violated the constitutional rights of black inmates "purely for the purpose of punitive punishment."
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Mitchell, a trained paralegal, is founder of the National Police Misconduct Project. The black activist is at the correctional facility awaiting trial on charges of assaulting a white woman last year. If convicted, he faces life in prison.
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In the lawsuit, Mitchell maintains that correctional officers have singled him out for harassment because he is an outspoken critic of the Battle Creek Police Department, which he has publicly accused of brutality and racial profiling. A complaint filed by Mitchell less than a week after his arrest on March 18 explains that deputy corrections officer Charles Bowden came to Mitchell's cell, approaching the black activist in a "menacing fashion" that caused him to injure his head and one of his eyes on the cell door. Mitchell is blind in his left eye.
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Bowden, who is white, then ordered Mitchell to move the mattress from his bunk bed to another cell, where Bowden told him to sleep on the floor next to a toilet-- "where you (Mitchell) belong."
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Bowden is one of the correctional officers whom the inmates are suing.
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Mitchell maintains that he has been in the hole since April 20 as punishment for serving as a "jailhouse lawyer" for several Cuban inmates. The Cubans, who are illegal immigrants, told Mitchell that they are being detained indefinitely at the correctional facility because they cannot be deported to Cuba.
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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that prisoners have the right to provide each other with legal assistance. According to news reports, officials at the correctional facility say that Mitchell cannot give legal advice to the Cuban prisoners because they have attorneys.
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In addition to Mitchell, the inmates who are suing the correctional facility are Thomas Howlett, Carlos H. Valladarez, Christopher M. Williams Jr., Raymond T. Johnson, Randy K. Williams, David E. Johnson, James W. Fletcher, Elmarko Irons, Bryan J. Vinson, Lee R. Fletcher, William F. Tate, Larry Caver, Glen F. Folden, Corey W. Nelson, James C. Nelson, Andre Fisher, Courtney Lewis, and Joel Issac.
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Along with Sheriff Byam and deputy corrections officer Bowden, the other members of the sheriff's department
who are being sued are Undersheriff Thomas Pope; Chief Deputy Marshall Weeks; Captain Terry Cook; Sgt. Marcia
L. Leavell; and deputy corrections officers Wesley Swickley and Sherry Cady.
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