This story was told by a person incarcerated at Mule Creek.
Caller: Well, I was tested on December 2nd, and then the following evening, December 3rd, I was called down to the podium and was retested. And 12 days later I was then isolated into a gym, where there was I believe about 90 people, 90 other inmates, there for a 14-day isolation period.
So, I should have technically been in the gym for two days. I spent eight days in the gym. In my opinion, the gym was very unsanitary, very cold, very closely compacted. Everybody was pretty close together. The cleaning was very, very poor. The food was very cold. Masks were not mandated.
They were from time to time, you know, handed out. But, you know, from everything we’re hearing on the TV, it just didn’t seem to be that serious of a situation. The toilets were all outdoors. They had one indoor toilet, but it wouldn’t, you know, service 90 or 100 people. So, they had several of them outside. Our showers were, was, an outside unit where I personally had to take a cold shower because the water wouldn’t keep up with the amount of people using the unit.
I can’t swear to it, but I’ve been informed that there’s been actually two staff members and two inmates that have died at this prison from the virus. But my biggest issue was the fact of – let me back up a minute. Back to this past summer, we had an inmate in where I was housed who had some illness.
They took him out very rapidly. They brought him back in a wheelchair completely covered in a sheet, and the staff member was in full PPE. They were, it appeared that they were assuming that he had the virus. Well, they emptied out his entire cell, put his cellies into a side room overnight, and left him in his cell by himself. And this is before this had become a real big outbreak, and they acted very quickly, very urgently with it.
Come to be the next day or two days later, everybody’s back in the cell. It wasn’t the virus. Well, now that it has hit the amount that it has, the severity that it has, they’re very laissez – what’s the word, lackadaisical?
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: I’m not pronouncing that right, I know. But like I said, I was tested, and it was 12 days after I had been tested that they told me that I was positive and that I needed to go into isolation.
And that’s been across the board, many people being left in their living quarters with everybody else after they have been tested for several days and then finally isolated.
