This story was told by a person incarcerated at Solano.
Caller: We are definitely being used as guinea pigs here at Solano State Prison. They did not present any document that says you’re negative or positive. They are just moving you around with people that are positive, people that are negative, people with attitudes.
We have to clean the bars, the cells, our cells, the rooms, the bed, and everything ourselves. And it’s not enough materials that would be provided so we can protect ourselves. They are more concerned about sweeping the floor than they are about disinfecting the whole place.
Giving us a change of clothes, giving us hot meals, or anything. They’re just moving people around. And without any medical personnel coming in here telling us, “This is what’s needed. This is your test results.”
So, the shift change, and then a different officer come in and do things their way and they’re creating a hostile environment. We’re not being actually attended to. They’re denying us our due process and denying us our equal protection. They’re denying us our right to life.
They are not providing anything medical. That should be done in preparation to help us try to deal with this pandemic. People are already stressing that they can’t see their family. They don’t know if they’d ever see their family again.
We definitely need to speak to the warden and the chief and medical staff. We definitely need to speak to somebody that would listen to us and to hear what we’re saying. They want us to cooperate with them, we trying to cooperate peacefully and humbly and communicate.
But they just say, “Hey, pack your stuff. You’re going over here. So and so says you’re positive. All right, you’re going to the hole. Well, we’re going to lock you up.” or “We’re going to take this from you.” Come on. They’re just force feeding us these cold meals and stuff like that.
It’s just unsanitary and unhealthy and it’s not helping our appetite at all. I’m not going to sit here and eat all this cold stuff and bring it over you. Are you kidding me? Breakfast, lunch, and dinner is just terrible, you know. It’s bad It’s just really bad. We need some help.
UCI: Okay, so, I have a few questions to ask you. Has the handling of COVID-19 changed since the outbreak first started in March, like it is being handled worse now, is it better than it was before?
Caller: It’s worse. Everything was worse because these people staff, and medical staff are using us as a guinea pig, they’re are getting paid while they go through a training process. They’re just now learning how to deal with such a pandemic or any type of high level medical situation.
A lot of the tasks and they don’t know what’s going on, they don’t know they just don’t want to lose their job, or the physician is taking orders for somebody that just guessing. There’s no plan, there’s no documentation.
We haven’t been provided to show us the A to Z what’s going on and what’s happening. They’re just coming up with different rules and different methods. Either you can tell that they’re not trained, they’re not experienced.
They never had no training or no experience to this magnitude before and they don’t know what they’re doing. A lot haven’t been in the system for that long. They just came from Walmart or out in the fields or a hardware store or something like that.
They didn’t go to Harvard, or Princeton, or Berkeley, or nothing like that. They just came hanging and got a job, cuz they don’t have a felony. And now they don’t know how to deal with it. And then then inmates that’s been in here, like myself, I’ve been going for 40 years. I didn’t come here to die.
I’m not here for death. I know I have a right to life. I know I have a right to equal protection. I know I have a right to my due process. And I have a right to be heard and speak. You know, and this is what everybody needs.
These guys did lose their cool. Somebody just starts coughing or throwing up and all of a sudden everybody it’s now ready to go at each other. And so, you know, we don’t want no viruses, and nobody to get hurt or anything like that.
We just need somebody to show us and tell us as a professional, or at least a warden, or a chief medical doctor, or nurse, or doctor, or somebody. Not just any guy that came here at 2 o’clock to say, “Well, they said you’re positive, so you’re moving.” I mean, come on, man. Give me a medical slip.
I got seven slips that says I’m negative. All negative. No, no, no signs, no nothing. And then he comes this officer and says, “Oh, you’re going to the gym because you’re positive.” “What do you mean I’m positive?” “Your name came up.” “What do you mean? All of my slips were showing negative.”
It’s just, I don’t know what they’re doing. They just seem like they’re using us as experimental guinea pigs you know through a process until they can figure out how to do better than they are doing, you know.
