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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDeath of Dog Trainer Highlights Strenuous Heat and Working Conditions Inside Texas Prisons
Death of Dog Trainer Highlights Strenuous Heat and Working Conditions Inside Texas PrisonsSeth Donnelly was one of the many inmates Texas prison officials use as prey for dog hunts. He died from heatstroke after collapsing on the job in Abilene.
Seth Donnelly desperately wanted to get out of the kitchen. Ever since the 29-year-old got his HVAC certification in prison, he applied for maintenance jobs highly sought-after assignments in lockup but a dumb tattoo always seemed to get in the way. Three years before he pleaded guilty to intoxication manslaughter in exchange for a 12-year prison sentence in 2012, Donnelly had the words Dirty White Boy needled onto his chest. Not surprisingly, the ink attracted unwanted attention behind bars. Each time he arrived at a new unit, prison guards assumed he was part of a similarly named white supremacist gang and put him on grunt jobs like kitchen duty. The major and I didnt get off on good terms, Donnelly wrote to his sister after one transfer. Hes convinced Im a gang member because of my stupid chest tattoo. God I wish I never wouldve never gotten it.
Donnellys mother, Deborah, says her son feared working in the kitchen at the Robertson Unit in Abilene, where he landed a couple years ago, worried hed end up either hurt or in trouble there. Then, two months ago, Donnelly called home, ecstatic about a new job training dogs to catch escaped prisoners. Deborah was happy but grew nervous once she learned more about the assignment: the hours her son spent outside the prison gates laying scents for the hounds to track; the trees he climbed to hide from the dogs; the stifling, 75-pound fight suit he wore for protection when the dogs attacked.
Soon after he took the job, Donnelly complained about the heat. Very hot today and tomorrow is supposed to be 102, he wrote to a friend on June 19. There that Texas heat is. Im exhausted from work today and I may have gotten a little too much sun as Im a little red. It appears to have been Donnellys final letter. Two days later, he collapsed after finishing an early morning training run with the dogs, during which hed been wearing the suit. According to a local justice of the peace, his internal body temperature was 106 degrees when he arrived at the hospital. Donnelly died on June 23 at 1:06 p.m. after doctors took him off life support. A preliminary autopsy lists the cause of death as multiorgan failure following severe hyperthermia.
Donnellys death has drawn criticism from advocates for prison reform and civil rights attorneys who have spent years fighting to end heat-related deaths inside Texas prisons. Some say its another tragic example of the need for independent oversight of the states hulking prison system, a proposal that failed during the most recent legislative session. This is absolutely ridiculous and avoidable, Amite Duncan, vice president of Texas Prisons Air Conditioning Advocates, told the Houston Chronicle. I always say that oversight is completely necessary because they keep getting away with these things. I feel like policies arent being followed.
Donnellys death also underscores the strenuous work Texas inmates are forced to perform without pay, as well as the prison systems controversial use of inmates as prey in staged dog hunts.
https://www.texasobserver.org/death-of-dog-trainer-highlights-strenuous-heat-and-working-conditions-inside-texas-prisons/
emmaverybo
(8,144 posts)I hope at least family sues for his needless and cruel death. And hope that the award is so massive it forces them to stop this brutality.
It all goes together, his being prey, turning the dogs into hunters, who will end up in the side of some road abandoned when they get used up.
How bout a program to train service dogs? Too civilized I guess. Rest In Peace.
SunSeeker
(51,367 posts)KY_EnviroGuy
(14,483 posts)On and off for several years, I worked with men in jails and prisons as part of my early program of addiction recovery. What I learned from those guys through letters, visits and phone calls was appalling, especially for one poor fellow who had Crohn's disease. I would have never learned it otherwise because I'm one of the fortunate few of America's heavy drinkers that never served a day in jail.
What I suddenly came to realize is that America and most nations around the globe simply toss anyone not conforming to society's idea of a perfect money-making morally-conforming human into a place behind walls and fences so they can be forgotten, regardless of society's role in them being there and regardless of the fairness of justice that placed them there. And, rehabilitation in the United States if mostly a complete joke. For most, once imprisoned their lives are thereafter in a trash bin.
Once they are disappeared into a detention system, their entire existence is subject to whims of prison officials and guards that often are mentally ill from that environment themselves and whims of state and federal legislators anxious to cut budgets to bare bones. And, almost 100% of it is out of sight and out of mind of our general public.
Cutting health care and food costs, facilities improvement costs and rehabilitation costs is an easy and non-transparent way to achieve reduced spending, especially in red states that are adverse to any and all taxes. Politicians and prison officials get away with it because almost all of our detainees are poor and neither them or their families have any voice.
It's sort of a warped component of our primitive territorial self where we build fences around anything unpleasant, from an annoying next door neighbor to entire nations. You might say that the wall around your nearest city or county jail or state prison is no different morally from our southern border. At least the southern border is now televised.
Rest in peace, Seth ....
KY Rant Done.......