28-year-old Dajade Melby was locked up six years ago for committing a robbery. He asked to be sent to Wallens Ridge, a maximum security prison in southwestern Virginia.
“A lot of people would tell you when you get into the system: The mountains is where you want to go if you want a program. The mountains is where you want to go if you want to get an education. If you want to fix your life, you go to the mountains," he explains.
Today, he claims to spend 23 hours a day in a two-man cell the size of a parking space with no chance for classes or programs.
“This is the worst mistake I ever made. None of that was true.”
Lockdowns were already common at Wallens Ridge when, in early May, six inmates allegedly stabbed correctional officers, prompting an even greater emphasis on security. The suspects were sent to Red Onion -- another maximum security center 26 miles away – and residents there were also locked down.
“Things have gotten a whole lot more tense since the situation at Wallens Ridge," says inmate John Ellis. "We’ve gotten substantially less recreation and out-of-our-cell time. We’re constantly being targeted, constantly being threatened.”
He says prisoners who had nothing to do with the attack can’t go to their jobs, to classes or the cafeteria. They have no visitors, can’t even attend church, and mental health care is extremely limited.
“We don’t get mental health treatment in here. They’ve got a guy who comes around. He asks you what’s wrong with you, and then he asks what drugs you want. That’s it.”
At Wallens Ridge, prisoner Rahsan Drakeford spends his time reading, writing or watching TV.He doesn’t like lockdowns, but he’s accepted them.
“I came up here in ’98 when they first opened this place. I’ve been through it all.”
He says other prisoners with psychiatric problems get worse when they’re locked up for so long, and he wonders where the mental health professionals have been.
“We’ve been on lockdown for four months. Mental health might have been in the pod four times. At some point it seems like they would have come in here and talked to all of us, because this is a lot for some people.”
And Ellis concludes it’s no way to run a prison.
“It’s not a way to correct criminal behavior or to rehabilitate people. It’s just a way to abuse people. It’s just state sanctioned violence.”
Many inmates claim they were beaten since the attack at Wallens Ridge. Among them, Austin Arocho who says he was pepper-sprayed in the face by guards.
“I laid down on the floor, and they started assaulting me at that moment," Arocho recalls. "They gave me two black eyes. I was coughing up blood, and one of them thought I was spitting on him and started kicking and punching me.”
His mother is now suing officers and administrators at Wallens Ridge, but John Ellis says it’s hard to prove an assault when you can’t show video from guards’ body cameras:
“They don’t have to wear them. They don’t have to activate them.”
State police have investigated another alleged beating involving a 27-year-old man – Aubrey McKay -- who died from his injuries. His mother, Stacey Carter, says he told her officers at Wallens Ridge didn’t like him and used racist slurs.
“He did tell me that, and it used to make him very angry," she recalls. "He was trying to hold himself together, because he wanted to come home.”
Aubrey McKay was set to be released in late July of this year – on his 28th birthday.
In a written response to concerns by prisoner advocates, the Department of Corrections says inmates are not being threatened or beaten, nor have officers destroyed inmates’ property – another common complaint. If there is evidence of excessive force, administrator Rose Durbin claims an internal investigation would be ordered and employees would be held accountable.
In our next report, we’ll explain why prison guards have been shooting inmates and what happened when one prisoner tried to protest. I’m Sandy Hausman.
PART TWO
Two maximum security prisons in southwest Virginia have been on lockdown for nearly four months after guards were attacked by inmates. They can’t have visits, take classes or work, but that’s not the only problem for hundreds of men who had nothing to do with the assault on guards. Some are being shot with rubber bullets.
When prisons are on modified lockdown, inmates get one hour out of their cells every other day to bathe, get a haircut, make phone calls and check e-mail. At the maximum security correctional center called Wallens Ridge, 27-year-old Durwin Horsley was on his way to a shower – carrying toiletries including a container of baby powder.
“I dropped my baby powder and bent down to pick it up," he recalls. A correctional officer shot me twice – in my shoulder and my ankle, and there was another guy 10-15 feet behind me, and they shot him too.”
Guards don’t use live rounds. Instead, their guns fire rubberized pellets that may contain chemical irritants. They’re designed to inflict pain but don’t break the skin. Horsley says he still suffers shoulder pain, three months after the attack.
“I’ve been putting in medical requests, and it takes forever to see medical up here.”
He filed a grievance.The Department of Corrections said it was unfounded.
Prisoners have also been shot with non-lethal bullets at Red Onion – another maximum security prison in southwestern Virginia. Donte Ebron says inmates are fair game if they don’t follow lines painted on the floor to show where they’re allowed to go.
“If we crossed the red or the yellow line in the pod, then the officers would be given a green light to shoot us without warning. Basically, officers have been given the green light to basically hunt us.
We asked the Department of Corrections how many times weapons had been fired inside Wallens Ridge and Red Onion but received no response.Durwin Horsely claims five or six prisoners have been wounded at Wallens Ridge. Dajade Melby says he’s heard guns fired 30 times since three guards were attacked in early May, and inmate Rahsan Drakeford confirms shootings are now common.
“There might be a shooting every day.Tensions are still high. + At this point you might get shot for anything nowadays.In the last week or two somebody got shot in the mouth. They didn’t get off the phone quick enough. They said lockdown, and I guess he was saying goodbye and I love you to his people, and they just shot him in the mouth.
Melby claims the prison has a policy of repression, hoping to discourage residents from committing new crimes when they’re released.
“They’re trying to use it as a sanction – like if you come to Wallens Ridge we’re going to treat you so bad and so inhumane that you’re not going to want to ever come back here, and that’s what’s going to fix you. I talked to the warden myself, and that’s exactly what he told me.”
He’s tried to protest prison conditions, going on a hunger strike for three days – hoping for a transfer to the prison’s medical center.
"After missing nine meals, which is the third complete day, they have to send you to medical. They have to!"
But he claims officers falsified the record – indicating that, on that third day, he accepted food, so Melby tried another channel of protest – filing an emergency grievance. Guards demanded to see a copy of his complaint.
“But I had it in my sock the whole time, so they weren’t able to find it.”
The system was supposed to act on his grievance within eight hours, but Melby says he never got a response.
We’ve asked repeatedly to speak with the Director of the Department of Corrections about these things, but the media relations office did not reply.
