This story was told by a person incarcerated at Salinas Valley.
Caller: Yeah, I would like to, you know, share my experience while I’m incarcerated here at Salinas Valley during the COVID-19 pandemic. I came down with COVID-19, well I came down with the thing twice.
Newspapers interviewed me several times. I want to send a copy of the article to the University of Irvine if you would like that. Is that alright?
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: Okay. I have the address here. It has my name in it so I don’t really mind if my name is being in there. I don’t mind. Is that alright?
UCI: So for what they put online, I mean I’m not sure how your name is in it, but they usually take names out.
Caller: Well, I’m the one who’s in the newspaper interviewed, so that’s why. That’s how my name is in it.
UCI: Oh. Okay.
Caller: Got COVID-19 twice due to staff neglect here at the Salinas Valley State Prison as well as, I don’t know, some other factors involved to control the COVID-19 or lack of. I will send you the article if that’s okay. As I said, my name is in there and I do not mind, you know, it being there if that’s alright with you.
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: Cool. Alright, so moving on, I’ve been approached by several lawyers as well regarding COVID-19 situation because the staff here, as far as the newspaper is saying, as far as data is saying, that Salinas Valley has the highest COVID-19 cases.
I mean, there’s, it has been staff here that has died, as well as inmates here. Several inmates have died. As far as I know one of my bosses died, and as well as one of my floor officers and some more officers as well here in Salinas Valley, you know, died from the COVID-19.
As for the shots, and, as you can hear from my voice, these are some of the ongoing aftereffects of the disease and the shots. I went – the second booster, my voice just completely went away, and its barely – are you going to ask any question on this or what?
UCI: Yeah, that’s very crazy. Did you guys get the vaccine recently?
Caller: Vaccine recently, the one that we’re talking about, COVID-19 and I got the first, I was infected initially back in September or August. The second time that I caught it was in April, February, April, somewhere around there. I was quarantined around 14 days each time.
UCI: Wow.
Caller: I’m sorry. Yeah.
UCI: Did you have the same symptoms both times?
Caller: Well, as I said, you know, the second time it was worse, you know? It was worse, you know, I had things I didn’t have at first. I didn’t experience the chills at first, I didn’t experience the loss of taste. Well I did the second time. You know, then there’s other things that happened and I said as a result of the shots themselves, you know.
I’m a diabetic. I’m a 58, well I turn 58, made a mistake in my, the newspaper, it said I’m 57, but I’m actually 58. I’ll be sending you that article Sunday with a thanks to you for getting in touch with me and your empathy you know?
UCI: Well, I’m sure that we will be excited to receive your article and hear more about your experience.
Caller: Okay, will you be sending me a copy of this thing that’s going online because I have no access to what’s going online here at the state prison in California.
UCI: I don’t think that we send articles.
Caller: I won’t question it, just you know, put it in – you can just put it in, you just need to download it and send it to me.
UCI: Okay, I can see what we can do. I’m going to send this recording over to my, so I’ll mention that.
Caller: Okay, has anybody else spoken about these things that I’m speaking about right now?
UCI: Yeah, we’ve had a lot of calls with similar stuff.
Caller: Oh okay, good, good. Well, pretty sure you’re probably going to need my name, or about me, seeing that I’m one of those, you know, main advocates. Some of the guys are actually upset, you know, about this safety issues [unintelligible] say, concerning, you know, the interviews, [unintelligible] lawyers, mails from lawyers, you know, wanting to take the case. Yeah.
UCI: What do you think could have made the COVID-19 situation better?
Caller: Excuse me?
UCI: At your facility, what do you think could have made the situation better?
Caller: I think if the staff wouldn’t have, you know, took better care of themselves because this is the people who brought this stuff in, you know? People are forgetting that that, you know? Me being a diabetic, I came in contact with staff four times a day and it was like, for the staff number, it was like 10 staff a day each time.
We’re talking during the first watch, morning and noon, and third watch, 5:00 and 8:00, so not counting the inmate workers there in the hospital where I go get my diabetic treatment.
I think that the staff should have taken better care of themselves as well as follow the protocol that was set in place such as showering, cleaning the showers before and after, not at night but which they did, only once tonight and sometimes they didn’t do that. But I’m saying after each and every individual got in and got out. You see what I’m saying?
UCI: Yeah, that should have been something that they did.
Caller: And they wasn’t doing that, they didn’t clean, they didn’t, never disinfect the trash cans that are inside the buildings. I was allowed to work in the kitchen, I was at the main kitchen at that. I believe they deliberately infected me, that’s my situation because of my lawsuits. We’re in a lot of lawsuits and I think they used it as an opportunity to impact my life.
UCI: Yeah, well I’m glad that you sent a letter and that you called and I got to hear your story. What else do you want people to know about what you experienced, what other people have experienced, and just like overall the situation?
Caller: Overall, well there’s a psychological effect going on. Everybody, you know, here, there’s an attempted murder on the yard here as a result, as a direct result of the pandemic. The guy just went crazy, he was already a mental patient.
You know. He almost took this guy’s head off on the D yard facility for absolutely no reason. But you know, being locked up, they did try, well I can give dayroom, but it was many times when we got no yard, no dayroom, staff just sat around and gave parties, what do you call it, potluck. You know?
There was many times where the yard was just clear, there was no inmates on the yard. During third watch when I would go do my diabetic thing, and staff is just partying, having big parties in the gym. You know, it’s crazy. You know, inmates get tired of that, some of it inmates.
We just got particularly, and I mean, you know, so lot of guys just reacted to the COVID, being locked up, quarantine, not being able to get out, in destructive ways. Lot of guys you know. They didn’t have jobs.
Fortunately, I had a job and I was able to get out and whatnot, but like I said I believe that I was targeted. It’s just my belief.
UCI: That’s very interesting. Very, very interesting. Thank you for sharing.
Caller: Okay.
UCI: Do you have any other last thoughts you want to share?
Caller: No, no, that’s about it. That’s about it, that’s about it. Like I said, I appreciate the platform and the ability and opportunity to tell the story at least. You understand what I’m saying?
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: Okay, well we got 60 seconds. I got [unintelligible] stuff. I’m a write you and send you the stuff and everything. Send me please, the downloaded version of this please.
UCI: Okay, I will let them know and hopefully we can make it happen.
Caller: All right. Appreciate you all right.
UCI: Thank you. Have a good night.
Caller: All right.
UCI: Goodbye.
