Prison officials give muted response to alleged brutal assault

Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility

The Philadelphia Prison System says it takes allegations of brutality against inmates seriously, and is investigating an alleged attack last week at the city's Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility. But prison spokesperson Shawn Hawes would not say what the investigation consisted of, or identify the correctional officer involved.

As for the officer's internal-affairs records, or any data on use of force at the city's prisons?

"I would suggest you file a FOIA," says Hawes, referring to the federal Freedom Of Information Act. (In fact, city agencies are subject to the state's Right to Know law.)

Three visitors to the prison told City Paper they watched in horror as a guard beat inmate Marcellus Temple last Thursday. More than 20 people representing about a dozen social service and city agencies were in the prison's gym to showcase their programs when the guard allegedly attacked Temple, as City Paper reported last Friday. Other guards standing nearby failed to intervene.

"I saw this officer punch this inmate," says one witness, "punch this young man in his face. He fell to the floor. You hear his head hit the concrete. And the officer then got on top of him and pummeled this man six or seven times."

The corrections officer said, "Twice I asked him to leave the room and he didn't want to, so I beat the motherfucker down," according to the witness who, like two others, spoke to City Paper on the condition of anonymity because of their agencies' ties to the city and its prison system.

But efforts since then to determine what the city's Prison System is doing to investigate and monitor alleged misconduct by correctional officers in Temple's case, and more generally, have been largely fruitless.

One witness says that a fellow inmate stated, "I'm so glad you all were here to witness it."
In Temple's case, it seems unlikely that the beating would have been known to the public had it not happened in front of so many visitors.

"He commenced to beating this man to a pulp right in front of everybody who was invited into the prison," says one witness. "The initial hit was like a one-two. The boy fell. He knocked him out ... his hands were straight on his side like you see on TV. Then the guard jumped on him and hit him like five or six more times ... and just kept beating him. Nobody said, 'Stop.' Nobody intervened."

That witness says the "man needs to lose his job ... and he needs counseling so it doesn't happen to nobody in his family. The rage I seen on his face was terrible. It was crazy."

The prison's official account, as related by Hawes, was much different.

"Apparently the inmate in question was instructed to leave with his group, and he refused that order," said Hawes. "He took a swing at the officer, from what I understand. And he was taken to the ground and handcuffed."

Hawes says that Temple suffered only "minor swelling," and did not require hospital care. She also says that Temple will be charged in connection with the incident.

"The prison system is lying to you," says one witness, who says the inmate never threw a punch.

A third witness echoed the others' account of a brutal and unprovoked attack.

"The CO had his knee in this guy's back," says the witness. "He couldn't move. It wasn't necessary."
"I'm still traumatized," the witness continued. "Nobody intervened."

Hawes would not say whether the guard had been provisionally removed from interacting with inmates.

"It's a jail, sir," says Hawes. "Everything is in physical contact with inmates."

Indeed, she indicated that the Prison System has no protocol for removing guards from duty when faced with serious allegations of misconduct — and she cast doubt on the allegations in this case.

"I don't doubt their [the witnesses'] credibility, but I do know what our officers face every day, and what kind of inmate this inmate is," says

Hawes, adding that Temple has been in trouble frequently both in and out of the prison. "I'm sure you're aware of what he's charged with."

Temple faces attempted murder and other charges related to an April shooting that wounded an 11-year-old bystander. Was Hawes implying that committing a serious crime — or being charged with committing one — legitimated physical abuse at the hands of correctional officers? No, she insisted.

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"The sad, long history of it is that they seem to have reverted to past practices," says Angus Love, executive director of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project. "About 15 or 20 years ago, there was a custom that any unruly inmate got a punch in the face."

A lawyer who frequently represents city prisoners says that abuse by guards is frequent. How frequent is hard to determine: The Prison System would not provide City Paper with any data on claims of excessive use of force or disciplinary actions taken against guards. That lawyer, who requested anonymity, also said that it was typical for inmates subject to abuse to be written up for misconduct or charged with assaulting a guard.

Lorenzo North, president of AFSCME Local 159, the union which represents city correctional officers, disagrees.

"We don't want to hit nobody, but we have a right to defend ourselves," says North. "There's a lot of oversight in there."

But North could not name a single case in which a correctional officer had been disciplined for use of excessive force.

Civil-rights attorneys have repeatedly sued the City of Philadelphia for overcrowded and inhumane prisons over the past decades, conditions that advocates say have resulted in inmates being held three-to-a-cell ("triple celling") and restricted inmate movement. Today's city prison population is about 8,500 — or about 2,000 over capacity.

One lawsuit filed in the 1980s, Lester v. Shuler, resulted in the prison system reporting excessive-force complaints to the Pennsylvania Prison Society, which could then conduct an independent investigation, says Michael McCaney, a Prison Society board member and lawyer who was involved in the case.

"The goal for us was you created a record of enough incidents," says McCaney, "then someone could use that to establish liability of the city in a civil-rights action."

That consent decree has, for unknown reasons, long since become defunct. McCaney says that it might have been superseded by the federal Prisoner Litigation Reform Act, which sharply limited prisoners' rights to file lawsuits.

The beating of Temple echoes another recent incident. Prison officials announced that inmate Michael "Fat Mike" Davis had died of "natural causes" on March 3. But Davis' family told the Philadelphia Daily News that his body, lying in the morgue with "two swollen black eyes, a split lip and bruises on his head and body," indicated otherwise.

Under pressure, the Prison System referred Davis' case to the District Attorney's Office. They did so the day before the Daily News story ran, and Hawes acknowledged that an internal investigation "did raise some concerns."

Anonymous prison sources told the Daily News that "the 396-pound Davis, who couldn't walk because of a full-leg cast, died after Deten­tion Center guards dragged him facedown to the mental-health unit."

But Hawes says that she does not believe the D.A. filed charges. As for the correctional officers involved, she says they were disciplined, but would not say how. Nor would she reveal their identities.

Asked if that information was public record, Hawes responded, "Perhaps, but we won't be releasing their names unless compelled. Our main concern is safety and security. Please keep in mind that correctional officers work in dangerous surroundings and often live in the same neighborhoods as inmates, their family and friends."

Love says that serious discipline rarely results from use of excessive force — even when the city makes cash settlements with inmates.
"They just pay the money and move on," he says. "The lawyers don't really trust the guards, the guards don't really trust the administration, and the inmates don't really trust anybody."

Currently, the only real mechanism available to hold the Prison System accountable for brutality is for inmates to file individual civil lawsuits against the city. Otherwise, it doesn't seem like anyone in charge of Philadelphia's booming prison system much cares.