This story was told by a person incarcerated at Chuckawalla.
UCI: And how was COVID-19 handled at your facility at the beginning of the outbreak? So, like how did they handle it in March in the beginning when we first started finding out all this information?
Caller: Well, like the beginning of March, they weren’t really doing nothing. They didn’t pass out like no masks, no nothing. They started passing out, they started giving us masks when people were getting sick already. That’s when they were, yeah, that’s when they started like, you know, supposedly like trying to take it serious. But they weren’t really taking it too serious because they were still mixing the yards. They were still allowing other people from other yards to come to this yard. And like they were like moving people around. You know, when other, when the people they were moving over here, they were already sick. And that’s how we all started getting sick.
So, they really didn’t, you know, control nothing. They just didn’t care. They didn’t really know what they were really doing. They were just mixing people.
And that’s how …No, they just – and that’s how a lot of people started getting sick. And that’s how I ended catching it.
UCI: Is it being handled differently nowadays, you think? Or do you think it’s the same thing?
Caller: I think it’s the same thing because they’re still like – what they want to do right now, starting next week, what they want to do is they want to start sending people to work.
Sending people to it. People that are like in education. They want to start sending people to education. You know.
When some of these teachers, some of these food staff are now trying to come in. But they’re still like forcing us like to go work and to go to education. And if we don’t go, they’re threatening us with write ups instead of giving us an option like you want to go or to work or you want … Or like people that are in education, like give us an option to go to school or be able to work, and we’ll do it in the building.
You know, but they’re threatening us with write, they’re threatening us with write up. And the majority of people are lifers. Like myself, I’m a lifer. So, say like if I had a job, or like if I was in education, they’re going to threaten me with a write up. And that’s like a denial for me, like a five-year denial for board. Like that would hold me back from not going home.
And I think that that’s kind of, and I think that’s kind of messed up. You know, I don’t think it’s fair because it’s like they’re not worried about us. Like they don’t even care if something really happens to us or we end up dying. Or something, you know. And I think it’s wrong.
