Getting a kick out of sniveling

It's not uncommon to hear of prisoners alleging fear, intimidation and retaliation for filing grievances against those who have custody over them. Save for the particularly egregious cases of abuse, where prisoners have suffered obvious and "provable" physical or other injury, such complaints are often rebuffed by prison guard supervisors, the media and the public.

Prisoners who submit such complaints are often labeled trouble makers, rabble-rousers or snivelers. They are generally described and dismissed as disgruntled.

However, it may surprise some to find that officers can, and sometimes do, file more complaints and grievances than those they have charge over. Here in California, a former minion of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation gives a seldom seen view into the usually impenetrable world of the inner workings of prison personnel politics.

Howard Crystal (not his real name), a former correctional lieutenant alleges a malicious string of retaliation, scandalous lying and mob-like intimidation directed at him and shielded by a street-gang-like code of silence by management.

"…[T]he department is very upset with me and they're trying to silence me. . .to shut me up," says Crystal, a chapter president of the California Correctional Peace Officers' Association, in an interview with the Antelope Valley Press.

"I've been fired twice, so they're really hellbent to get me," he continues.

Crystal was last fired in December 2005, following an internal investigation that revealed, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, that he deliberately delayed medical staff from tending to a prisoner, Eddie Arriaga, on September 10, 2004, after Arriaga was allegedly attacked and strangled by his cellmate. Arriaga died.

Crystal counter alleges that CDCR officials are lying on him in retaliation for nearly 4,000 grievances filed by his union chapter -- in just a six month period -- in an attempt to enforce facets of their union contract.

What's interesting here is that while complaining that prisoners file too many grievances, the CDCR has cited the expense of processing prisoner complaints as a reason they should be deterred and limited. One CDCR estimate, cited a few years back, said that a prisoner-initiated grievance pushed through to maturity and fully exhausted could cost taxpayers as much as $5,000 each. On the other hand, given the extraordinary pay CDCR guards make (not to mention the elevated pay scale of a lieutenant, and the fact that salaried upper-level personnel must attend to staff complaints), one can only imagine what a single staff-initiated grievance would total when fully exhausted -- and that's just the preliminary process before the lawyers get involved and the inevitable lawsuits ensue.

In one complaint, dated August 12, 2005, Crystal described one method of intimidation employed by management for would-be whistle blowers: In the warden's office "a stuffed toy rat [is] taped to the bull's-eye of a military-type shooting target. Above the door, taped to the upper left-hand corner [is] a cut-out picture of a handgun pointing toward the rat."

Crystal complains that the rat symbolized employees who tell on other employees (kind of like the convict code). They label such employees as "rats" or "snitches." In many of Crystal's personal complaints he expresses fear of retaliation for reporting misconduct within the CDCR. He has filed twelve such complaints on the subject of retaliation, alone.

Crystal's allegations of an internal code of silence follow several other accusations of guards putting up what has come to be called the "green wall" during misconduct and criminal investigations involving colleagues. The green wall is a united front of unwavering solidarity for other officers accused of misconduct or crimes, and is fortified by painstaking maneuvers to protect their own; first from the rank and file and then tentacle out to aggressive union representation.

In one particular instance, involving King County CDCR guards, a deputy district attorney buttressed Crystal's accusations, directing them not at management, but at the CCPOA itself. "They've all retained union [provided] attorneys who've advised them not to talk," said the deputy district attorney.

CCPOA President, Mike Jimenez, publicly denies that the union fosters a code of silence. Democratic Senator Jackie Speier, of Hillsborough, directly retorted that Jimenez' "rhetoric" did not correlate with his actions, referring to the union's generous supply of lawyers who advise its members "don't talk, don't cooperate."

The distrust goes beyond just one senator, as apparent by several state congressional hearings and investigations. At one point a union-hired lawyer offered to allow his clients to be interviewed if they could bring their own audio devices to record interviews in conjunction with the DA's recorders. However, concerned that union officials might stoop to manipulating the evidence, the DA said: "…[I]f we tape and they tape and then they tamper with their tape, you'll never figure out whose tape is accurate."

It should be noted, cited an observer of the case, that while every criminal defendant has the right to assert his Fifth Amendment standing not to incriminate himself, it is illegal to hinder the investigation of crimes by another person. Such actions also severely taint the public's expectation of the professionalism endowed to peace officers.

Considering all of the expensive wrangling and legal shenanigans by the union and those they shelter, in large part, at taxpayer's expense, it seems, at least to this writer, that if anyone has a valid complaint it should be the average California citizen whose state business and orderly affairs are being made a mockery of by a number of these corrupt state employees' unethical, underground approaches to those state affairs.

This writer personally recalls a rather distasteful exchange with former lieutenant Crystal. There was a period where the cellblock lunch count consistently came up short. A number of us would have to wait hours upon hours to get our lunch. On occasion, these late lunches wouldn't be delivered until dinner time - some five hours later. In an attempt to correct the problem without filing a complaint, three of us approached Crystal and explained the problem. We were brushed off with the following remark: "Quit sniveling, at least you got your lunch before the day was over!"

It is ironic to now find Crystal echoing many of the same concerns usually voiced by prisoners: apathy, threats and retribution by those affiliated with the CDCR.

The criminal investigation in King County stems from the death of a prisoner at the state prison at Corcoran in 2004. The prisoner, Rafael Gomez (not his real name), suffering from acute hepatitis, was allegedly allowed to bleed to death after he yelled and shouted for help repeatedly for hours while prison guards purportedly occupied themselves with the Superbowl and other distractions. Gomez, who was on an organ-aided machine, desperately howled for help, while wildly kicking the inside of his cell door in a frenzied effort to get the guards' attention. According to published reports, there were some guards who wanted to intervene, but were dissuaded from doing so by their supervisor. At one point, in a dramatic display of his dire need, Gomez smeared his blood on the cell door window. His calls for help were ignored throughout the night.

The following morning he was found dead on the cold, concrete cell floor partially submerged in a puddle of his own blood. The toilet bowl was also full of blood. Later, the king's County coroner issued a statement indicating that Gomez's body was drained of a significant amount of blood through an opening in a shunt that was connected to his chest. The shunt's cap to his machine was separated from the apparatus.

Prison officials claim he committed suicide. The coroner outright rejected that claim.

The eighty-two-year-old mother of Gomez said of the neglect: "…[T]hey let him die like an animal."

From the description of the events that took her son's life, there is no question this distraught mother has legitimate gripes to air, along with the public.

Yet, despite his allegations of pervasive corruption within the CDCR, Crystal is shooting for another shot as a CDCR employee as he strives to get his job back, purposely exposing himself to the same work-place jeopardy he so vociferously complains about.

It makes one wonder, but perhaps some just get a kick out of sniveling.

Update: as of submission date, former lieutenant Charles Huges has not been reinstated into the CDCR and Senator Jackie Speier termed out of office at the end of the 2006 mid-term cycle.

Sources: Patrick Hart, "Deputy DA Complaining of Code of Silence Investigators Find Silence Hinders Their Probe of an Inmate's Death," Los Angeles Times, March 5, 2004: A1, A25 (DA's comments about Mike Jimenez and the Gomez case).

Jacqueline Kallas, "Man Pleads Guilty in Killing Cellmate," Antelope Valley Press, April 6, 2005, A5.

Jennifer Warren, "State Prison's Chief Resigns after two months on the Job," Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2006, A1.

Howard Crystal, AKA Charles Lewis (confidential subject).

Marissa, "Fired Correctional Officers' Union President Files Lawsuit," Antelope Valley Press, July 12, 2006: A1, A4.

- A California prisoner, June 2007

MIM adds: It is no surprise that the prison guards will do whatever necessary to cover up their crimes. This is just a small part of why we call it the Criminal Injustice System. It is based on fundamental injustice from the police on the streets to the judicial system and sentencing biases to the prisons themselves. This system locks up a vastly disproportionate number of Blacks and Latinos while letting the biggest criminals run the country.