Suspicious & Punitive Covid-19 Lockdown at Miami CF

By Aaron “Israel” Isby

9/24/20

What really happened on August 30, 2020, at Miami Correctional Facility (MCF), is not clear. We were told there was a COVID-19 outbreak, and the Warden ordered an immediate lockdown. We stayed locked down until September 2, 2020, with a brief opportunity on September 1, 2020, to get a shower. The majority of PEN (Prison Enterprise Network) industry workers are housed in G-Cellhouse (GHU), and others in I-Cellhouse, and a few in J-Cellhouse. These people are PEN Industries’ bread and butter, so this lockdown did not sit right with PEN’s bigwigs. On September 3 & 4, 2020, workers in G-Cellhouse, with I-Cellhouse, and J-Cellhouse, were allowed to go to work at PEN Industries. This lockdown was modified, so when we came in from work, we got a shower, but were locked again in our cells until the next day. On September 5, 2020, we were allowed to come out of our cells in the dayroom, and were told we are off lockdown.

This did not last: on September 6, 2020, the entire prison was placed on lockdown!

Since then we have been on 24 hour a day lockdown in our cells, with no out-of-cell time, we are served paper bag meals three times a day consisting of cold cuts, an apple, cookie, and pack of kool aid. The prisoners who are on religious diets (kosher) are being intentionally served expired meals and bread, that are no longer kosher or consumable. There has been no organized feeding schedule: we might get our lunch at 4pm and dinner at 7 or 8pm. Our personal and legal mail is not being picked up and sent out as policy mandates, the law library guy that is supposed to pick up legal mail did not show up for the first two weeks of this lockdown, and when he decided to visit the dorm (GHU), he came in and went to just a few cells, got legal mail and left the dorm. This was his way of looking like he was doing his job, but he continues to neglect his responsibility, to ensure that every prisoner on this unit gets an opportunity to get legal mail picked up, especially those who have legal mail to send to the courts or their attorneys. Our showers are also being undermined by these national guardsmen, who they are not running showers when they are supposed to. We are supposed to get a shower daily, but this has been neglected. We have been getting access to a shower once every two days. This lockdown is not about preventing any virus, it has been about punishing and controlling us!

These officials tell the media that 200 prisoners are quarantined and there are 60 prisoners confirmed with COVID-19, at Miami Correctional Facility, and this is why the entire prison is on lockdown. This was not actually the truth, only one prisoner had been tested, and the swabs from the one prisoner who was tested had not been sent out or returned from the outside lab, so, there were no results to confirm that these prisoners in K-Cellhouse actually had COVID-19.

The story inside here is, this one prisoner made up the sick story, so he could make a check-in move because he owes some prisoners in his dorm money. When word got back to the media that the officials here had told a big white lie, because the numbers did not match up, these officials – now trying to cover their tracks – initiated a manhunt and went to different dorms throughout the prison and started rounding prisoners up moving them to the gym. When they could not meet this 200 quota, they plotted another conspiracy. 

This second conspiratorial plan by these Miami Correctional Facility officials, was to target those in the GHU honor dorm, who they believed would go along with it and would not buck. Someone in the administration here sent one of their lackeys to GHU to give a prep talk to the prisoners, and tell them to pack all their property because all 200 prisoners were being moved to the gym. Little did GHU prisoners know this move was being done to meet that 200 quota, so when the media did a follow up, these officials could confirm they had 200 prisoners quarantined. This diabolical plan was foiled by the enormous support GHU prisoners received from outside families and friends who made a barrage of calls to the IDOC, demanding answers. We are still lockdown and this is week four of the lockdown. There are many other stories coming out that are only furthering our suspicions of the real reasons why this prison was locked down. Many prisoners are claiming they were targeted for abuse and these COVID-19 claims were lies from the very inception. One prisoner claims that their test never came back and the medical staff stated his test is missing. He stated he never was sick and did not have any symptoms, but still became a target for abuse? There are many other prisoners claiming no tests were taken and test results mysteriously came up missing, so my question is: where are these 60 or more COVID-19 cases? I have been told over half of this prison population is being transferred out to other facilities throughout the state. It is my belief this is a cover-up, and those who laid dormant in that gym for a month, and never had a confirmed test for COVID-19, are amongst those being moved out of this prison.

On the morning of 9/28/2020, over a hundred prisoners in GHU were allowed to go back to work at PEN industries. Now, the contradiction to all this is that the rest of us in G-Cellhouse (GHU) are still locked down and not being allowed to come out of our cells into the dayroom. The fact that a hundred or more prisoners in our dorm (GHU), were allowed to go to work today, would imply to most of us that this dorm (GHU), is no longer on lockdown. This seems to not be the case and someone needs to find out why we are still on lockdown! 

09/30/2020 

These cells and this dorm (GHU), are like refrigerators. These twisted officials installed an extremely large blower on the ceiling in my dorm last week. This blower is being used to torture us, blowing cold outdoor air intp this unit causing these temperatures to drop down to refrigeration levels. Last night, they turned it on and kept it on all night. It was in the mid- or low 50s outside, and I had to sleep in all my clothes, to try and keep warm. This lockdown is being used for punitive purposes. It is not about COVID-19, these officials are using this claim of a COVID-19 outbreak, as a pretext to implement something more diabolical! These cold cells, and 24 hour lockdown, are SHU (solitary confinement) tactics! They been telling inmates that we are still in quarantine. How is this quarantine, when we are not sick and our vents are connected so we are breathing the same air? Keeping us on lockdown 24 hours each day for the last month and blowing outdoor cold fall air on us is definitely a move by these officials to break down our bodies’ immune systems and cause us to get sick.