11-26-23 8-9am. In the 15 years I’ve been in Perryville this was the most brutal incident that I’ve witnessed in person. There are horrible documented stories of brutality to women here, and I’ve seen my share. Pile on’s of 7 grown men on a 90lb woman are not unusual, neither is women becoming pregnant by guards, or the hundreds of ways the DOC treats our vulnerable women prisoners.

But this was up close and personal. Ms. S. had been deteriorating mentally for about a month before this final episode. She was exhibiting personality changes, then they became more pronounced as time went on. In the four days leading up to her psychological break, her friends in A3 watched her rapid descent into madness. Ms.S. spent all her time kicking out, fighting, against imaginary beings, and screaming at “them”. She didn’t eat, sleep, drink, bathe, or even go to the bathroom. As her torment grew more agitated, several of her friends tried to alert staff, but of course they were ignored. At one point her best friend tried to talk to Lt. Adamu and he replied, ” If you bother me again I’ll give you a ticket.” (Isn’t he a treasure.)

Then that fateful morning when COII Lucid was told…THEN things happened. CO Lucid was very calm and talked quietly to Ms. S. in her cube. Suddenly, S. was out of her cube dancing and screaming obscenities. Lucid called the cavalry, the yard was shut down, and seven guards descended on the scene. CO Gully is a huge, 230lb, 6’2 body-builder, and he tried to cuff her first. As she saw the guards surrounding her…she went wild. They couldn’t handcuff her so she was thrown on her bunk and held down by 5 guards, one was filming the event. I felt they were entirely too rough physically with her, and Sgt. Brown was the MOST culpable in inflaming the situation by YELLING at her at the top of her lungs.

Do these people have any crisis intervention training at all???? Apparently not! I have alerted the Court Appointed Monitors, and hope to hell the DOC has not erased the tapes.