“Throw them in the cell and ignore them for days?”

Photo of Elmwood Correctional Facility taken in October 2022.

Excerpt from Texas, a defendant at the Hall of Justice in winter 2022.

Texas: […] they arrested me, uh, three days after Christmas.  

Interviewer: Wow.  

Texas: Three days before New Year's Eve. If you have a bond—if you have bail and you don't bail out within two hours of them taking you to, like, booking. If you don't bail out within two hours, then they transfer you to the county jail, which is Elmwood [Correctional Facility]. And they have this rule in there to—since the pandemic, you have to quarantine for 24 hours before you can take a shower or use a phone or whatever. But they literally threw me and another guy in a cell, and we didn't have access to a phone for the whole—the whole time I was there, I didn't have access to a phone, a shower. It’s three days gone by, and the only thing they do is open the doors to put the meals in. So now we got trash piled up. We got three days’ worth of breakfast, lunch, and dinner boxes just piled up. They don't take the trash out, and they don't let you out to take the trash out … Uh, the toilet. It was dried blood on the toilet and on the walls. And, you know, they was feeding us [inaudible]. I have to use the toilet, but I wasn't going to sit on that.  

Interviewer: Right.  

Texas: So I ask the guard. Uh well, I tried; I kept trying to get his attention, I kept trying to get his attention, and he would ignore me. And they have a medical emergency button in there. So I pushed the medical emergency button, because that was the only way I was going to get his attention. He could not ignore that, by law. So, he comes up the stairs, and he asked me what the problem was. I was like, "Hey, man, I've been trying to ask you, can you bring me like a cup of bleach or something so I can clean this toilet? I mean, I know I'm not in a hotel, but bro, there's dried blood on this toilet like—y’all just threw us in this cell. And y'all talking about quarantining for Covid, and it is dry blood on the toilets, and you won't give me bleach to clean the toilet.” He's like, “I’ll get to you when I can. I'm busy right now.” So I didn't bother him anymore, because he did look kind of busy. But two in the morning rolls around and I'm like, bro. So I pushed the medical emergency button again, and he was like, “I told you this was for medical emergencies.” I'm like, “At this point, it is a medical emergency because, you know, I'm getting sick in here, and I can't use the toilet because it's dried blood on there.” He's like, “Oh, I forgot.” And he went and got the bleach then. I was like, that looks … I don't know. Like my experiences with jail and court in California is way worse than any experience I had in any southern state.  

Interviewer: Right? Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing all of that with me. That's really, um, sad to hear, um, but I thank you for being honest with me. I really appreciate it.  

Texas: I mean. I know jail is not supposed to be a walk in the park, you know, but dang to just do people like that. Throw them in the cell and ignore them for days?