Read:
www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tomnamako/layleen-polanco-video-rikers-jail-seizure-trasngender
It claims there
"New Video Reveals How Jail Guards Reacted When They Found A Transgender Woman Unresponsive In Her Cell. She Later Died."
"Then, there’s a 47-minute gap until an officer checks on Polanco at 2:27 p.m. At 2:45 p.m., two correction officers, apparently seeing something was wrong, open Polanco’s cell, start calling in to her. Then they both laugh for an unknown reason."
However the official report tells a very different story:
Polanco's family claimed:
"Her mother and siblings described her as loving and gentle, citing her love of animals and the care she provided them. "
However:
"The 2019 case stemmed from a dispute with a taxi driver wherein Ms. Polanco was alleged to have refused to pay the fare and bitten the taxi driver. "
Polanco was in prison and not out on bail because $500 bail was not posted.
The reason for this bail was that
"On nearly all of her cases, Ms. Polanco bench warranted multiple times. Her rap sheet shows five failures to appear as well"
It is noted that
"First, if an incarcerated person’s securing order indicates that they are transgender they start off with a presumption of being housed at a female facility. If the incarcerated person indicates that they want to be housed at a female facility they can be sent to either the Transgender Housing Unit of a female facility or they can refuse that option. If they refuse the transgender housing facility option, they can also be housed in the General Population of the gender with which they identify, so long as they are approved by the Transgender/Intersex Housing Committee. "
and in this case, the prisoner opted to go to transgender unit within female prison.
It is apparent that despite this being a 'transgender unit', all of the staff are biological women. Easily overcome by biological males.
After arriving on April 16:
" Ms. Polanco [on May 6], striking the other incarcerated individual multiple times in the face, causing a laceration. "
"On May 14, 2019, DOC noted that Ms. Polanco was showing “radical changes in behavior,” "
and on May 15
"Ms. Polanco advanced towards a Correction Officer and made hand gestures towards the officer’s facial area.13 As she was approaching, the officer ordered Ms. Polanco to stop and the officer extended
her right arm. Ms. Polanco then struck the correction officer in the right forearm, "
So Polanco assaulted a fellow criminal, this was noted as alarming, and the very next day assaulted a female correctional officer.
"After the incident, Ms. Polanco was found sitting on the floor of the intake cell, refusing to engage with staff. That same day, Ms. Polanco was transported to Elmhurst Hospital where she was reportedly being aggressive and refusing to cooperate with hospital staff"
"After evaluation at Elmhurst Hospital, Ms. Polanco was transferred to the Psychiatric Prison Ward at Elmhurst Hospital for psychiatric monitoring. On May 24, 2019, Ms. Polanco returned to Rose M. Singer Center."
and on May 30 was given a punishment of 20 days in a solitary cell.
On the day of death, June 7:
"At 10:45AM Ms. Polanco left her cell and was escorted out of the housing area to the clinic so that she could inquire about when she would receive her next hormone treatment"
and then lunch was served and collected at noon. The video footage shown above shows the female staff understandably nervous at this known violent prisoner, and they peered through the window and noted that Polanco appeared to be listening to music.
When they became worried when there was no movement, they opened the cell and called out, and when there was no answer they summoned medical staff, but did not approach Polanco because as women they were naturally and rightly scared of this violent man.
"Williams notified Captain McZick that they needed help at the cell. Williams and Gales say they were hesitant to enter the cell due to Ms. Polanco’s previous assault on staff; therefore, Captain McZick was notified to prop the door open while both officers entered Ms. Polanco’s cell. When Captain McZick got to the cell, she held the door open while the two officers entered to investigate. "
So they had one woman guarding the door, while two more women investigated the known violent male inmate. No male staff anywhere.
So in summary a biological male was admitted to what is admittedly a unit for other biological males, but staffed by women who signed up to guard biological females, not biological males. Said biological male was in prison for a violent attack on a taxi driver, and then attacked a fellow inmate, and struck a prison officer as well. The women guards were naturally afraid of this biological male because of the inherent strength advantage of males over females, greater propensity violence, and known history of violence. As a result, these women were incapable of responding in the interests of this prisoner (to prevent death following a seizure) , and the prisoner died.
So the prisoner's welfare was directly compromised by being in a female prison as opposed to a male prison, even in a 'transgender unit', and if incarcerated in a male prison, may have received better attention as at 5'3" and 161 pounds, it is unlikely that male prison guards would have been so frightened of this person.
It is worth noting that the likes of Buzzfeed 'News' make no attempt to report the salient facts in this case, and indeed attempt to cast doubt on them.
"The report said Polanco was placed in isolation for 20 days after allegedly assaulting another inmate and getting into a scuffle with a correction officer. "
In fact there was nothing 'allegedly' about it, as this had been acknowledged by Polanco, and the matter had been dealt with in a hearing and Polanco found guilty of injuring another inmate.
They also claim
"It comes as the nation is reckoning with systemic racism in how law enforcement officials — including police and prison guards — treat Black, LGBTQ, Latinx, and people of color."
yet the prison guards were black
and ignore the reason for the bail (repeatedly not turning up to face criminal charges in court)
they claim
"the officers' laughter [was] “unfathomable, and it’s really just a symbol of the complete disregard the entire system had for Layleen.”"
yet there is no reason to believe the laughter had anything to do with the inmate's death, nor that they had any inkling that a 27 year old inmate had died, from the prison door. It is vanishingly unlikely that the two black female officers thought that the black transgender inmate had died at the point they laughed. And indeed blaming black staff for this person dying, as white male Buzzfeed journalist Tom Namako does, is not appropriate, as it seems to me that the ultimate responsibility for the endangering of the safety of black female prison staff as well as black transgender prisoners lies with white male Mayor, Bill de Blasio, who signed both the policies (in 2016 and 2018) that allowed this to happen.
www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/193-18/mayor-de-blasio-department-correction-will-house-incarcerated-individuals-according-to
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Feminism: Sex & gender discussions
How can it be appropriate to have violent male prisoners in guarded by women?
20 replies
ShootsFruitAndLeaves · 14/06/2020 18:38
OP posts:
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.