ICE Detainee Wouldn't Let Guards Break His Prosthetic Legs, Gets Solitary Confinement
Do detainees dream of electric feet?
Ever since 46-year-old Rodney Taylor was taken into custody by ICE agents this past January, the Georgia barber’s friends, fiancée, and even the immigration judge who was given no say in whether Taylor would be detained have been begging for his release.
It was a bad enough situation to begin with, as Taylor has been in the United States since the age of two and was being deported to Liberia over a crime he was convicted of when he was 16 and for which he was later pardoned by the state of Georgia, and because he is a double amputee who requires medical attention the detention facility is not capable of providing. And now it’s worse.
Taylor has now been placed in solitary confinement — a practice which violates international law regarding the humane treatment of prisoners — for refusing to go into his cell after it flooded, on account of the fact that it could have destroyed his electronic prosthetic legs. The legs, which are powered by a rechargeable battery, are microprocessor-controlled and therefore cannot get wet. If they get wet, they’ll be ruined, and Taylor will not be able to walk.
According to Taylor’s fiancée, Mildred Pierre, when Taylor refused to go into his flooded cell on Sunday, he was handcuffed by guards and brought to solitary, where he stayed until Tuesday without water to drink or any ability to recharge the batteries for his legs.
Naturally, Georgia’s Stewart detention facility says that this cannot possibly be true, because they don’t even have solitary confinement and will not stand for it being called that. Brian Todd, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, the private prison company that operates Stewart, told The Guardian that what they have are “restrictive housing units,” in which prisoners are confined to windowless cells, by themselves, for 23 hours a day, denied access to a radio or television and only allowed to shower three times a week. This is very different from solitary confinement, where prisoners are confined to windowless cells, by themselves, for 23 hours a day, denied access to a radio or television and only allowed to shower three times a week. See? Totally different! And very rude to confuse the two!
Todd also claimed that Taylor “is being regularly monitored by facility medical staff, with all known medical issues are being addressed, and our staff continuing to accommodate his needs.” Given that this has not been the case in the many months Taylor has been in detention, it seems unlikely that it is the case now.
Taylor was meant to have been fitted for a new set of prosthetics just days after he was detained in January, and was not able to even begin that process until late May, after multiple outlets had reported on his poor treatment at the facility.
Via The Guardian:
Pierre had gotten Taylor’s clinic in Lawrenceville, Georgia, to send the new prosthetics to a clinic in Albany, Georgia, about 75 miles from Stewart – in February. Nonetheless, when guards took him, shackled, to the rural clinic on 23 May, no one from Stewart or the clinic had ensured that the battery would be charged.
Not only that, when he returned in late July, the clinic could not calibrate the legs to his body, since staff was unfamiliar with his model of prosthetics. Using the new prosthetics for months without them being calibrated means he suffers severe pain on his left knee, Taylor told the Guardian.
Frankly, at this point it seems like a ridiculous thing for anyone to lie about. Those of us who know better won’t believe it, and pretty much all of the Trumpers are thirsting to see people like Taylor treated inhumanely.
If officers at these facilities are putting nice, double amputee barbers in solitary confinement for refusing to destroy the prosthetic legs they’d been working to get for months, and which cost about $50,000 per leg — what the hell are they doing to everyone else?
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
There is a special place in Hell for these ICE assholes who think this is how we should treat humans. Fuck them all. These are crimes against humanity. These scumbags need to be held accountable. Period.
Oh FFS
𝑃𝑅𝑂𝑉𝐼𝐷𝐸𝑁𝐶𝐸 — 𝐶𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑒𝑟 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑡 𝐵𝑟𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑈𝑛𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑚 𝑇ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦’𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑑𝑜𝑝𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑝 𝑎𝑑𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛’𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 “𝑚𝑎𝑙𝑒” 𝑎𝑛𝑑 “𝑓𝑒𝑚𝑎𝑙𝑒,” 𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑢𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑢𝑛𝑠 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑛𝑜𝑛𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑟𝑦 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑎 𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑢𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑦𝑝𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑎 𝑏𝑒𝑎𝑐𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦.
That trick never works.