From The Appeal:
In March 2018, J’Allen Jones, a 31-year-old Black man incarcerated at Garner Correctional Institution in Connecticut, died after refusing to comply with a strip search. When officers told Jones he needed to submit to the procedure, he resisted. That is when the violence started. Officers forced him onto a bed, pepper-sprayed him, and kneed him in the thighs. Then, officers placed a spit hood over his head, a practice that experts have linked to dozens of in-custody deaths. After 20 minutes, Jones’s breathing became labored and his body went limp, which officers ignored It took another seven minutes before a nurse discovered Jones had no pulse. The Connecticut medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.
The J’Allen Jones case has returned to the spotlight this year after CT Insider reviewed a 350-page report by a Department of Correction investigator. The report included still photos from the video footage documenting the incident. Now, the ACLU of Connecticut is fighting for the video’s release, arguing the public should know what happens behind prison walls.
Strip searches—the procedure that triggered this deadly encounter—represent a form of state-sanctioned violence with deep historical roots in American racial oppression. The practice of forcing people to disrobe and submit to bodily inspection directly echoes the dehumanizing treatment of enslaved people, who were regularly stripped naked and paraded in front of potential buyers. This historical connection is particularly salient given the disproportionate incarceration rates of Black Americans. Continue reading >>>
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