Alameda Jail Inmates Ask Federal Court in SF for TRO to ‘Protect’ Them from COVID-19

By Crescenzo Vellucci
Vanguard Sacramento Bureau Chief

SAN FRANCISCO – The VANGUARD has learned that male inmates at Alameda County’s Santa Rita Jail are asking for an emergency temporary restraining order from the U.S. District Court here to “protect” them from the ravages of COVID-19, which has been “well-established” at the facility since March.

According to a filing expected to be heard this week, the jail’s response to someone suspected of having COVID-19 is to throw them “in the hole,” and only some of the “lucky few get a few cough drops.”

The pleading, filed by civil rights attorney Yolanda Huang, asks the court to intervene, and “concretely require the defendant Sheriff, his underlings, and relevant personnel from SRJ’s contracted, for-profit medical care provider, defendant Wellpath…to protect the prisoners at SRJ from defendants’ continuing failure to provide reasonable COVID-19 prevention, care, and treatment.”

Declarations of prisoners, public health experts, and physicians were filed with the complaint, which alleges prisoners at SRJ “are left with little defense against COVID-19. Under the total control of the defendant SHERIFF, there is little testing, tragically poor implementation of distancing, ineffective isolation of quarantined inmates, improper sanitation, a severe lack of soap, sanitizer, and personal protective equipment.”

It adds that “Under ordinary circumstances, there is effectively no clean-up or disinfecting, and the place is filthy. Grievously, during the COVID-19 pandemic, poor practices and disregard for sanitation continues, with tragic implications for prisoners, as well as anyone who enters SRJ or comes into contact with anyone who has entered SRJ.”

The pleading informs the court that “most SRJ staff members do not wear masks or other PPE such as gloves at work and staff move freely between quarantined and nonquarantined housing units. Inmates report various body fluids on nearly every surface with rare and ineffective cleanings by SRJ and completely inadequate provision of cleaning supplies which would allow inmates to take steps to clean and protect themselves…these practices serve to spread COVID-19 within the SRJ and to those in contact with SRJ staff and inmates.”

Inmates charge in their moving papers that “Defendants’ response when a prisoner becomes ill with COVID-19 is a transfer to solitary confinement (the ‘Hole’), where he is locked without treatment and denied basic care…some days later, the prisoner–declared to be ‘recovered,’ despite being symptomatic–is transferred back to the general jail population.”

Infected prisoners assert that while in the “hole,” they complain of “significant symptoms such as breathing difficulty and chest pain, (but) are treated punitively,” and say they are denied medicine and information about their illness…”kept in freezing cold cells without sufficient blankets (even when requested), and kept indoors away from natural light and open air for extended periods. A lucky few receive a couple of cough drops.”

The complaint claims that the “public also has interests in (1) avoiding accelerating the spread of the corona virus both in the Jail and to others in contact with inmates or staff at the Jail, (2) preventing overburdening hospitals, and (3) preventing future societal burden caused by the loss of inmate health or life, including income for minor children and the ability of prisoners to work after their release.”

“A jail sentence should not be a death sentence or punishment with a poorly understood but debilitating disease, much less so should an arrest result in a death sentence,” the pleading notes.

The TRO requests strongly argues that the inmates have “no adequate remedy at law, as damages would not suffice to compensate neither the potential serious physical injury resulting from COVID-19, nor an untimely death.”

“Many of the plaintiffs suffer from comorbidity, including heart disease, and asthma. Because the Sheriff is also the Coroner, and reporting has been limited to the Sheriff’s website, it is unknown whether there have been any resulting deaths or whether there were required hospitalization due to the corona virus if the death did not take place inside the Jail,” the pleading charges

And, in relating the dangers of the virus, the complaint affirms that “The health risks of COVID -19 are still being uncovered, with the recent new information that children infected with COVID -19 sometimes suffer serious coronary side effects, and that individuals can develop frost bite like symptoms in their toes, and even young patients can experience debilitating strokes.

“The most dangerous and imminent harm from the corona virus is the high rate of death. Given the extraordinary steps all branches of government in California have taken, including closing public facilities to the public, and the broad shelter-in-place health emergency orders, there is no question COVID-19 produces imminent harm. The Plaintiffs and even more so, the members of plaintiff class, have no adequate remedy at law for the injuries they have suffered and will suffer in the immediate future.”

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