Clemens Unit - Federal

To MIM(Prisons),

I would like to tell you a problem I am having with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) between Allred Unit and now at Clemens Unit. I’ll start in May of 2021, when I was talking to a Ms. Carter at Allred who was a mental health counselor. I’ve been a G-5 since August of 2020 and I wanted my G-2 so bad that I asked Ms. Carter about Program Pamio which is a 6 month program where once completed you will get your G-2 and skip the G-4.

When you get a G-5 you have to do a year, then you see UCC and you go to G-4. Well Ms. Carter told me about a program called CMI and she told me it was the same program as Pamio; but she couldn’t tell me nothing else about CMI. I told her I will come up for my G-2 in 6 months and I will be able to to go to the law library and move around. She straight up lied to me and told me yes. Then on 24 November 2021 I made my G-4 at Allred and I have my freedom to move around again after 15 months in solitary confinement. I seen Ms. Carter again in November after I made by G-4 and I told Ms. Carter that I didn’t want to go to CMI, and I wanted to sign a refusal note. Ms. Carter told me all I had to do was tell the guard when I’m called on chain to leave that I wanted to sign a refusal note.

So on 12 December 2021, I seen Ms. Carter again and told her again that I didn’t want to leave Allred and to let me sign a refusal note. She told me the same thing: just tell the guard.

Well on 29 December 2021 I was called on chain to go to the CMI, so I told the guards and they wouldn’t do nothing about signing a refusal. So I sat down and Allred ran a team on me and made me get on that bus.

So let me tell you what I learn about CMI and Pamio program. Both programs are federally funded programs and the state get two checks for each prisoner in the program. Well I learn CMI stands for Chronic Mentally Ill treatment program. But let me tell you the criteria of the program: (A) Offender must be male (B) Custody classification of Restricted Housing (i.e. Administrative segregation, or G-5).

CMI’s purpose is to provide a structured, multidisciplinary treatment program specific for the offender in Restricted Housing (RH) and G-5 custody who require close monitoring due to their chronic mental illness.

You see, when an offender sign for the CMI program the offender is to be moved to the program within 1 month after he signs. So I signed in May of 2021 and in November of 2021 I made my G-4 and December 2021 I was called to the CMI – well that’s when I found out I wasn’t going to be admitted into CMI.

So I arrive at Clemens on 4 January 2022 and I learn CMI was a MH program, and that we’re to be locked in a cell 24/7. Look, if Ms. Carter would have not lied and told me that CMI was a MH program in Restricted Housing – I waited 15 months to get my G-4, do you think I would have signed it? All these rules about the CMI program is in A-08.8 CMI. Now remember what I told you about being a federally funded program: well Ms. Carter already got her bonus for me to sign and didn’t let me sign the refusal note. So on 6 January 2022 they run UCC classification and a Major Sutton, Lt. Garcia, and J. Bristow improperly classified me as CMI L-3/MH which they did just so Warden Gonzales could collect for TDCJ the federal money for me. But here’s the thing: on 7 January 2022, a Dr. Marchant came to my cell and told me I was not admitted into the CMI because I was a G-4, so if I wasn’t admitted how could they classify me as MH?

So anyways Clemens put me into the CMI pod called A-Pod and I was held with nothing but segregated prisoners who were insane and there was not one night I didn’t fear for my life.

Here’s another policy I read on AD-03.50: It is policy of the TDCJ to provide a non-punitive status involving the separation of an offender, which these people have me mixed in with all segregated/CMI prisoners. These prisoners have to complete this program to go back to general population. But I am general population and under safety policy of the AD-03.50 these officials have placed my safety at risk. There is no justification for Clemens to violate TDCJ-ID policy and procedures. It clearly says that Administrative Segregation was only designed for punitive status prisoners. But they only changed the name over to Restricted Housing, which is predominately the same name for segregation.

I have repeatedly requested to be moved to medium custody off this building but all official repeatedly ignore all of my request including this unit head warden and all assistant wardens.

Assistant warden’s name is Ms. Teresa S. Martinez. The Head Warden’s name is Adam R. Gonzales.

This information is also under the Texas penal code 39.04 the violation of the civil rights of a person in custody.

So months pass and I’m still in CMI pod and 30 April 2022 a special classification review comes from Huntsville and see over 200 prisoners that have been in the CMI, but discharged over 2 years and no less than a year. Well I’m discharged, and I go see SCC which is the committee that classifies prisoners. Well I was given my G-2 and told I was to be moved off Clemens the next week. Well between May 2nd through 7th, they moved over 200 prisoners and they were segregated and G-5 and G-4. But since I only had 5 months here they didn’t move me and left me in seg which is CMI. So on 31 May 2022 I go see UCC and they promoted me to line class 1, which is best and G-2 is best just above G-1.

As far as your comment about the Grievance System, well, I gave up on the system a while back. What I do is I will write a letter and address it to Brad Livingston, Executive Director of TDCJ, or Ombudsman, etc. whomever I need it to go to, then I will mail it to my family members and have them email or fax a copy of the letter to whomeever I addressed. That way I get a chance to explain my problem myself. Thus far, it appears that Huntsville (headquarters for TDCJ) has investigated each complaint that I have sent in. I know that not everyone is able to do this, because not everyone has someone on the outside.

Here at the Clemens Unit, some of the problems that I have been working on are:

1. The state will not treat me for periodontal disease
2. The laundry department here will not give us clean clothes (uniforms) on the weekends, or on holidays. This time of year, we sweat through our uniform every time we go to the chow hall. After sweating in the same clothes for three days, they smell pretty bad. However, Capt. Teenha Walls would rather not let us have clean clothes, and save the state a few dollars.
3. There are not enough fans in the chow hall, or in the day room.
4. The maximum capacity for our day room is 64 people, but there is between 82 to 92 people in our section. So every time that we have lunch, supper, or church, or commissary, our day room is so over crowded that the rank will rack us up because people do not have anywhere to sit.
5. We have antique doors here that roll manually. People are always getting caught in the doors. People have lost limbs, because the state is too cheap to install the conversion kit simply because it is safer.
6. TDCJ staff is notorious for not giving us our engress and egress that policy says that we are supposed to get. The standard operating procedure here is to falsify state records.
7. The light fixture in my cell has not worked for three months, but maintenance will not fix it.
8. We are supposed to get rec three times a day, but we are lucky to get it once. Then most of the rec equipment is broken, but rank here will not fix it.
9. We are allowed to go to commissary once every two weeks and spend $95, but we are supposed to put all of our property in a two cubic foot locker. It is impossible to put $35 worth of commissary in that space, much less $95, and all of our other property. Insufficient storage space.
10. The other day two inmates got into a fight. They were put in lock-up, and the whole wing got locked down. The guys were fighting in the chow hall. Why did the wing get locked down? We didn’t have anything to do with it. The state uses blanket punishment to promote inmate on inmate conflict.
11. The rank here runs showers starting at about 5:45am. Then we are not allowed to shower after we go to rec.
12. In the chow hall our trays, cups and spoons are filthy with food residue from previous use.
13. We have officers that assault inmates then the rank covers it up.
14. When we get johnnies, we get two sandwiches. One of them has a tablespoon of some kind of meat. The other has a tablespoon of peanut butter and jelly mixed. That is not enough food for a grown adult.
15. By policy, we are supposed to get twenty minutes to eat, but the staff here barely gives us three minutes.

These are problems that I continue to write Brad Livingston about. Sometimes it takes a while to get something done, but you just have to keep on.

Grievance Petition Update

I received a memo from the TDCJ Ombudsman office after mailing a petition to Governor Greg Abbotts’s office 13 April 2015 stating “Your correspondence was forwarded to this office by the office of the Governor. The Governor’s office does not respond to prisoner complaints or requests.”

I wrote to…
… Scott Medlock of the Texas Civil Rights Project at his new address. It is 1101 E 11th St, Austin, TX 78702. I wrote to him on 19 May 2015, and have not received any response.
… Senator Jean Huffman on 23 February 2015, with no response.
… FBI Houston 15 June 2015, with no response.
… Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on 26 May 2015, with no response.
… Region 3 Director Leonard Echessa on 3 July 2015.

I would like to receive 50 petitions so that I can mail to district attorneys in the surrounding counties. I took it upon myself to participate in this campaign because there needs to be accountability.

Obstruction of Grievance Process

CO II Okonknoo called me a “troublemaker” and made a comment stating something like “I have received a lot of grievances [on my misconduct]. The grievances help promote me. Every grievance that is written on me states that I am doing my job. Let me do my job.”

Grievance Investigator II Anna Rodriguez fails to answer questions in regard to grievance numbers. She asks me why I need these numbers, and states that she doesn’t know the pigs who receive the Step 2 grievances in Huntsville, Texas.

Every Step 2 medical grievance sent comes back with a rubber stamp. Myra Walker was usually the one that signs off on step 2 medical grievances.

Rat and Roach Infestation, Rotten Food

I live in a dorm with 53 other comrades where rats tear up soups in lockers, and roaches are all over. Comrades leave cups and spoons all over the floor. The dishwasher is always messed up. Therefore we comrades get dirty spoons, cups, and plates.

They undercook food. I can’t even eat greasy food in prison like I used to: chili, mac, beef noodle casserole. Most of it is pork. The diet for health trays contains pork. We are eating bananas and cucumbers, some of which are rotten.

Unkept Facilities and Supplies

I have been constantly sneezing and coughing up mucus. It is overly dusty here. Urinals and plumbing is filthy rotten. There are shower heads that are out. I press some of them and every now and then they work. They need maintenance. Maintenance never comes in to inspect and fix the drainage issues.

We haven’t received any cleaning supplies in a long time. At my last unit and other units we get cleaning supplies each week. This unit doesn’t care about cleanliness.

We are only allowed one pair of boxers, one top, one bottom, and one pair of socks. We exchange daily. At other units (Robertson/Roach), you keep two pairs of each. Pigs trip about having more than one pair of boxers. The boxers are torn up. They expect us comrades to wear these torn up boxers. The laundry department refuses to repair them. This also goes for the shirts. They never replace missing pockets in the shirts or the pants.

They do not change the water coolers every hour throughout the day/night like they are supposed to. There is a lot of heat exhaustion. This is an older unit. I feel that they need to shut down this unit.

Guards and Medical

The majority of staff at the unit are Afrikan nationals who treat comrades as trash. They bring their bad attitudes to the prison and unleash it on comrades. Most of the pigs don’t wear their nametags which is a violation.

I had a lot of problems showering at night because pigs want to screw comrades of showers when they work 1st shift/go to school. Every comrade should be afforded a shower.

The medical department is bad. The lighting in the dayroom at nighttime is too bright and it has hurt my vision severely. I was diagnosed with lattice degeneration and dot hemorrhage (thinning of retina). Medical doesn’t do a lot for comrades.