This story was told by a person incarcerated at Avenal.
UCI: Is there anything else that you want people to know about?
Caller: I want to let them know that there’s not, the news isn’t telling them everything, not in the slightest. There’s actually, I’m sure people have heard, but in case they haven’t, there was a story in the LA Times and it’s actually posted up on the board that I’m looking at.
This man was on my yard and he was a kitchen worker and he feared for his life because that was the kitchen that was, you know, people were actually getting sick in, like really deathly ill. And he told the staff that I don’t feel comfortable going to work, he refused. And not obviously for any dumb reason, like it’s a life-threatening disease. And they told him, you’re going to go to work or we’re going to give you a write up, which is like a black mark for somebody that needs to go to a parole board. Because if you go to parole board with that write up, they’re going to deny you one, to five, to 10- year denial over that.
So, they forced him to go to work and he later died because of COVID-19 from the kitchen. You know, this isn’t a joke. These COs don’t care. A lot of them are here to just collect a paycheck. They don’t understand that this affects us too. And they’ve even gone as far as trying to put it on us that we’re not doing our part when it’s physically impossible for us to social distance here.
So, I just want to explain to the public that this is traumatizing for a lot of us. And I really hope that maybe soon or one day we can figure out a way to make this safe. Not just for the people on the street, but for prisoners as well.
