This story was told by a person incarcerated at Santa Rita Jail.
UCI: What has the COVID situation been like at your facility?
Caller: It’s been really bad, they, so, that like, they just put people in quarantine. You know, for no reason have them in quarantine. For, you know, over the 14 days that is required due to Cal/OSHA or the CDC requirements or whichever one that gives the jail guidelines on how to deal with the COVID, the COVID quarantine regulations and stuff like that. It’s very – it’s very unjust.
My attorney even just tried to come up here, to visit me while I was in quarantine. They had me in quarantine for over – for over, I want to say, 21 days. Just due to, I wasn’t, they only got one classification in one building, so I wasn’t able to go back to that building per my classification. And they kept me in the quarantine pod, and that’s what had me in there for 21 days.
They said they used that as a buffer, that I had to get rid of my orange medical in order for me to get out of that quarantine. They made me miss court for that. My attorney, like I said, wasn’t able to come and see me because I was in quarantine.
And as soon as I got out of quarantine, I finally got out, I believe after those 20, 21 days and I got tooken off the orange medical. I went out to a main pod where like, it’s regular, it’s green. Greens and orange medicals are two different, like, classifications.
Orange had their own pods, those are the people that’s, you know, easy exposed and that can have a damaging effect if they catch COVID. You know, diabetes, high blood pressure, all those, etc. So, they have like a pod for those individuals that – that’s at risk.
So, I had to get rid of my orange medical in order for me to get out the quarantine pod. I was missing court and stuff like that. Like I said, my visits and stuff like that. So once I was able to get, remove my orange medical because I needed to get to court, stuff like that, I went into a green building, which is like, you know, people that if they do catch COVID they’re not really at risk, it won’t affect them as bad.
So, I had went to that building and immediately within, I want to say less than a week or maybe a week, I caught COVID. I had to go back to a quarantine building. And, as, the reason why I had caught COVID because they, it was somebody in the pod that was COVID. He was isolated by himself but in the same pod with everybody else.
They was letting him come out by himself but he was still coming out, you know, getting on the phone, watching TV, using the shower. There was no bleach, no anything used as far as to try and contain it, or contaminate any germs that he may leave behind for when we come out for pod time, like, for the people that come out pod time after him.
And it was a lot of people that was catching COVID. Let’s just say in that one pod, like, three to four people and I was included in catching COVID. That’s how I caught COVID. I was very sick and stuff like that. So, you know, I went to quarantine and stuff like that.
And this jail is just like very, they – they not really caring about how they – they pretend to be like, they care about people, health and stuff but they really don’t. Another instance, when I was in four building, the sergeant that do the interviews as far as newspapers, for the news and stuff like that. He said that he, you know, he didn’t find out, or his deputies didn’t find out about the outbreak that happened in four building when it was a mass outbreak.
I was in that building, the next pod over. They was very aware of that. I even asked one of the deputies, like you know, “Why would the sergeant say this, right, in the paper, right, when he was right there?” He tell me that’s above his pay grade, so he just left it at that.
I said, “But you know that’s people’s family,” and stuff like that. So, he didn’t really want to elaborate on it like that, he just pretty much left it there.
But, you know, I definitely let him know, you know, that like, that was like, you know, that’s totally unfair to our families because this sergeant or whatever he is, is on TV or giving interviews to the paper saying he just found out about them. When he been knowing about this or the deputies been knew about this outbreak and tried to make it seem like they didn’t find about it until sometime later.
You know, so this jail is very un-functional. And, they don’t use bleach, they use this disinfectant that’s very watered down. You know, they don’t have like [unintelligible] alcohol wipes for us, accessible for us.
They run out of it, like they don’t keep enough of it, you know, in stock for us to be able to have it. They run out of it and stuff like that. Like, you know, they don’t get the power workers, you know, the real cleaning supplies.
Even if they don’t want to give it to the people that’s ain’t a power, just to come on and clean up with Clorox bleach and stuff that they get that’s supposed use for the pod, at least to try to keep the COVID down. So those are my concerns as far as this jail during the pandemic and stuff like that.
UCI: Well we thank you so much for calling. Is there anything else you’d like to share tonight?
Caller: No, that’s pretty much it for now that I have.
UCI: Oh, well, thank you again. We really appreciate all of your calls. It’s not possible without your guys’ stories.
Caller: Mm-hmm.
UCI: If you’d like to’ oh sorry.
Caller: Uh-huh. What’d you say?
UCI: If you’d like to tell friends or family, we take any calls and stories related to COVID, but no pressure at all. But, thank you again.
Caller: Okay, thank you. Alright, you have a good day. Appreciate it.
UCI: You too.
