Abuse in R.T.U.

In April, there was a group of us that were asking for grievances. There was this one prisoner, he asked for a grievance, I turned around to see who he was so that I could see who was on our side. So when I turned to look at the prisoner and the Correctional Officer: the CO was sitting behind the desk and the prisoner was on the opposite side of the desk.

The C.O.’s name is C.O. Conner. He yelled out: “What did you say?” to the prisoner and ran around the desk to grab the prisoner from the back. The prisoner still didn’t move. The C.O. grabbed the prisoner’s arm and began twisting the prisoner’s arm so bad causing the prisoner pain.

The prisoner screamed out “What did I do wrong? I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything to you.” The C.O. then grabbed the prisoner’s body and picked him up and slammed the prisoner face first on the hard solid ground. The C.O. then started beating the prisoner with his elbow on the back of his head. This is the third time this C.O. is involved in something like this. I asked for help from other staff members but they all have different stories on what had happened and they all cover up the whole story blaming the prisoner claiming that it was his fault. It is on camera but when you file a grievance the staff that is responsible for the grievance always has some kind of excuse and make it seem like we have no case. Almost every staff member is crooked and they enforce this behavior.

I believe that the C.O.’s Sgt, Lt, etc… have it as an initiation to beat us and send us to the hole. Most of the staff members come from the military and police force and have a “I will fuck you up” attitude. We are in the R.T.U. and mostly every staff member that works here is not certified to work here and treat us like shit.

MIM(Prisons) adds: Many years ago MIM published a similar report of abuse from here from a C.O. they called grainy. Turned out to be Sgt. Grainer, who later became infamous for his torture photos with Afghan prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison. The C.O.-military connection seems to live on in Pennsylvania.