Monday, December 21, 2015

Rev. Pinkney Writes to the ACLU

The following are excerpts from a December 3rd letter from Rev. Pinkney to the ACLU of Michigan regarding MDOC Director Heidi Washington's response to Rev. Pinkney's complaints of mistreatment.

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The Director Heidi E. Washington is being untruthful.

I was placed in an area of confinement containing black mold at bunk E-93 lower, behind the lockers and around the walls. After complaining for about a week, and talking to correctional officer Popo, he moved me to D-70. There was no black mold in D-70. Then on Nov. 25, 2015, I was moved back to E-93, and the prisoners washed the whole area down--it was full of black mold.

I have received my legal mail at least twice already open and read. They had also opened my outgoing mail that I had sent out, several times....They had been recording my attorney calls since January, the month I arrived.

I went over three weeks without clean clothing, clean state-issued clothing. I would ask to see or go to the Quartermaster. They would lie, and say we are too busy to write a pass, which takes 30 seconds. The prisoners got together and gave me clothes to wear, because they witnessed what was going on. Marquette Branch Prison does what every prison in Michigan does: whatever they want, and the Director backs them up.

The Marquette Correctional Officer Schretter on the 2pm-10pm shift has been threatening, intimidating every day he is at work. I have been subjected to mistreatment and harassment by the correctional officres. They have written misconduct tickets, when there was no misconduct. The correctional officers issued five misconduct tickets that were outright lies and for three of the five I was found not guilty. The other two misconduct tickets, I was too sick from the black mold to fight.

There was no violation of the telephone policies....Also the Hearing Book states, the name and number must be correct. The [earlier] misconduct ticket was dismissed because the name was wrong, but the [telephone] restriction was still allowed to stand. The notice of intent has three errors of the name, and I was still given or put on phone restrictions.

Mr. Lambert watched me attempting to call home several times. I was thinking Correctional Officer Schretter was cutting the telephone off and on from the office to harass me, whenever he saw me on the phone. So prisoner Lambert attempted to call. I was so upset I went into the TV room, then Lambert called me and said your wife is on the phone. I did not know Mr. Lambert had used his PIN. I never used his PIN.

Heidi Washington is not being truthful. There were no telephone violations. The Department of Corrections cut [my] telephone off before issuing a misconduct ticket which is a due process issue. The [earlier] misconduct ticket was dismissed. This is a violation of policy.

Why did not Heidi Washington send someone to speak to me?! Nobody came to speak about all the issues. She is being untruthful.

The prisoners have rallied behind me, because of the correctional officers' threatening, harassing and intimidating behavior....

Rev. Edward Pinkney