The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Bret Grote, an investigator with the chapter, said credible prisoners who were confined in cells near Bullock contacted the organization claiming that Bullock, though a known suicide risk, was moved from a video-equipped cell to one without monitoring capabilities.

And on the morning of the suicide, two guards at the Jackson Township facility had been kicking on Bullock’s cell door, saying, “Kill yourself, you little p****,” according to one prisoner report, Grote said.
Prisoners also reported to Fed Up! that prison staff failed to place Bullock on suicide monitoring watch after Bullock stated his intention to kill himself. Hours later, Bullock was found by guards on the next shift hanging dead from his cell door, Grote said.
“No one, much less the mentally ill, should be held in Dallas’ (restricted housing unit). It’s a torture chamber, and for Matthew Bullock, it was a death sentence,” he said.

A Luzerne County jury found Bullock guilty of third-degree murder but mentally ill in the strangulation death of 33-year-old Lisa Hargrave in the couple’s Wilkes-Barre apartment on Jan. 1, 2003.

Hargrave was 22 weeks pregnant. The jury also found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter but mentally ill for the fetus’ death.
Grote noted that Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Judge Joseph Augello in November 2003 ordered Bullock to serve 20 to 60 years at a secure mental-health facility, and on July 15 “for reasons not yet known to the public, (Bullock) was moved from a state mental health facility at SCI Waymart to SCI Dallas, which is not a mental health facility and is not equipped to provide substantial mental health care.”

Grote said he planned soon to forward this information to various state officials, including Gov. Ed Rendell and officials at SCI Dallas and the Department of Corrections.
Bullock’s father, Robert Bullock, of Dallas, said he and his wife, Phyllis, needed more time to digest the information and declined to comment on Thursday.

PSP found no wrongdoing
Sue Bensinger, deputy press secretary for the state Department of Corrections, said Bullock “exhibited no indications of suicidal behavior prior to his committing suicide.”
Bensinger said Bullock had been discharged from the mental health unit at SCI Waymart because he had been exhibiting no signs of suicidal tendencies there, and, after arriving at SCI Dallas, he wasn’t on suicide watch because he still exhibited no signs of suicidal behavior.

According to Times Leader archives, prosecutors at Bullock’s sentencing hearing said he would be placed in a “hospital within a prison” setting and, if his condition improved, he could be transferred to a state prison with a judge’s permission.

Bensinger noted state police investigated Bullock’s death, as they do for any death that occurs in a prison, and found no wrong doing.A trooper at state police Troop P in Wyoming confirmed Thursday that there is no ongoing investigation into Bullock’s death.
Still, Bensinger said the information would be forwarded to the department’s Office of Professional Review.“We take all these kinds of allegations very seriously,” she said.

Bullock reportedly distraught

Grote also said the restricted housing unit in which Bullock was being held “employs the practice of solitary confinement, in which people are isolated for 23 or more hours a day in cells the size of a small bathroom, often under extremely harsh conditions.
“Solitary confinement is known to exacerbate mental illness and the practice of holding people in isolation – particularly the mentally ill – has been condemned by human rights groups and the United Nations,” Grote said.
He said Bullock was reportedly distraught over “constant harassment and intimidation” from guards, and about conditions in the SCI Dallas restricted housing unit, such as 24-hour lighting, extreme heat and poor ventilation in the cells.

“These conditions and extensive abuse by guards, have been the focus of an investigation by the Human Rights Coalition, who over the past three months have been compiling dozens of reports of human rights abuses at SCI Dallas, including encouragement of prisoner-on-prisoner violence, guards arriving to work drunk, prisoners being called racist slurs and retaliation – including death threats – against anybody who dares exercise their constitutional rights to file inmate grievances or civil suits regarding conditions of confinement,” Grote said.

DOC’s Bensinger said she didn’t have the size of solitary confinement cells immediately available, but she confirmed there is 24-hour “very dim lighting” during sleeping hours, “which ensures officers can, indeed, see into cells.”
http://www.timesleader.com/news/State_to_investigate_allegations_about_Dallas_prison_guards_09-11-2009.html