How is anyone in America okay with this treatment of prisoners?
I am reading about J6 defendants who are still in prison and being transported. I want to describe what that is actually like. For me transport days were traumatic.
A prisoner is woken up early in the morning. Probably 3AM, give or take a few hours. There is a chain wrapped around the waist that cuffed hands are attached to. Sometimes the chain is tight enough that it constricts the stomach and causes discomfort to the abdominal area. Both feet are also cuffed and attached together with chains that are too short to take a normal stride in so every step is a half step. The hand cuffs never hurt me as much as the ankle cuffs did. With the ankles every single step was painful. Older people normally have bruises or cuts from it. I would have red indentions into my skin. It also makes a difference in who the officer is who puts them on because some officers put them on much tighter than others.
Once cuffed it is extremely hard to get your pants up and down to use the bathroom. While riding a bus I saw women helping each other get pants up and down to use the restroom. I personally dehydrated myself in preparation for the trip so I wouldn't have to go to the bathroom. When I was offered an outhouse at the airport that male inmates had used there was urine all over the seat, I had no way to clean the urine off, hover above the seat, let alone get my pants up and down, so I held it. Also, for females who fly on the plane back and forth from the transfer center in Oklahoma, they have to walk down a row of men to get to the bathroom on the plane. Walking near male inmates is like being a piece of fresh meat. The comments and stares are demeaning. Some women dehydrate, refusing to drink anything the whole day, just to keep from walking down the row of men.
The day is long. You don't get to your place of arrival until late at night. There is no entertainment. No books. Nothing. Just a long day of being painfully shackled.
Hopefully the prisoner is not blackboxed on top of it which is even more painful and causes bruising. When Shelly Stallings, another J6 defendant I was housed with at the SFF Hazelton in West Virginia, was taken out on medical trips she was always black boxed and came back with bruises. She spent the day listening to officers tell her "I will shoot you if you run."
So that dear friends is what the J6 inmates who should be released on a pardon have gone through during transport recently.