By Jason Renard Walker, a Texas prison writer

As the year 2016 comes to a close, I am constantly reminded about a prisoner, 31-year-old Alton Rogers, a black male, who was found unresponsive and covered in bed sores in his cell on January 18, 2016. He died at the Northwest Texas Hospital here in Amarillo, Texas on January 19.

He’s the third prisoner in the past three years, to die as a direct and proximate result of medical neglect, deliberate indifference and gross negligence.

Rodgers’ particular death stemmed from a lack of health care, dehydration, starvation, bleeding of the brain, correctional officer’s failure to conduct visual security checks every 30 minutes —which require them to see if the prisoner is alive and well— and several other violations of Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDJC) rules and policies (by medical staff and officers).

The autopsy report concluded that his death was from blunt force trauma to the head, which supposedly occurred during a fight with his cellmate, 40-year-old Joe Greggs [http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2016-04-01/autopsy-inmate-was-starving-when-he-died], in the close custody wing of the high security building here at the Clements Unit maximum security prison. (I’m housed in the solitary confinement wing).

One medical examiner stated that Rodgers’ body was in an advanced “starving” state, most commonly associated with cancer patients or Holocaust survivors. It was also listed in the report that he had signs of pneumonia in the lungs, a pulmonary embolism (blocked air circulation to the lungs), an ulcer around his hip and crusted abrasions two centimeters in length scattered across his back, which are more often than not consistent with being bedridden [http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2016-04-01/autopsy-inmate-was-starving-when-he-died].

Despite being 6’7″ and weighing 160 pounds on April 29, 2015, when he died he only weighed 148 pounds and had a body mass index (BMI) of 16.7, which is considered as an advanced starving state. Even though Rodgers supposedly died from a brain hemorrhage caused by a skull fracture, Chief Medical Examiner, Sridhar Natarajan, said that the possibility exists that the hemorrhage could have happened before the altercation [http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2016-04-01/autopsy-inmate-was-starving-when-he-died].

In other words… Rodgers could have already been on the verge of dying from something else, and Greggs is being framed for murder. The autopsy report states facts that are inconsistent with what officials say happened, namely that Rodgers died from a head injury and nothing more. Key evidence showing that he was dehydrated, starved and literally wasting away has been ignored by prison officials, who instead have kept the focus on Greggs (even though they are just as responsible and even more so), since their own policies are specifically designed to prevent situations like these.

There was no criminal investigation to determine if any officers should be held responsible too. Instead, a minor in-house investigation was conducted. This allowed authorities to play judge, jury, and prosecutor, and simply dumb down their own responsibility, while being given the opportunity to fix any irregular details that would hold them directly liable. Thus it was an exercise of damage control.

Medical staff are supposed to physically check on us daily (welfare checks) to ensure we are in good health, but due to them being understaffed these checks are avoided entirely. In fact, on August 8, 2016, the entire pod I’m housed in (H-Pod) didn’t receive their late night medication because (according to the officer stationed here that day) medical staff were short and didn’t want to come. The following pill call, outraged prisoners spoke to Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN Harvell). He claimed that everybody was lying because the computer showed that the entire pod verbally refused their medication.

After Rodgers died and it was exposed that some officials and medical staff were on the verge of being fired, welfare checks, 30-minute checks, cell searches and inspections, and walkthroughs by the major and warden were done as policy states. Before, none of these policies were being followed. After seeing nurses come to the pod several days in a row to check on each of us, I asked LVN Peggi Frisbie what was going on. She explained, “Welfare checks, we supposed to do them and we haven’t; since that guy died our supervisor is getting on our ass.”

Of course everything died down, and everything was back to business as usual, once nobody got fired and slaps on the wrist were handed out to those who were supposedly responsible. Since we have little to no outside media support, medical staff and prison guards control the outcome of any investigation they are in involved in, which is channeled to the public via TDJC’s public information darling Robert Hurst: “Medical staff from Texas Tech University Health Science Center checked on Rodgers daily in his cell and said that he did not indicate to medical or correctional staff of any issues with his cellmate.” [http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2016-04-05/tdjc-clements-inmate-wasn’t-starved]

Even if they had checked on him, he wouldn’t have been able to respond since evidence proved that he’d been lying unresponsive and in the same position for quite some time. Even more so, we can’t expect any of TDJC’s employees to openly refute the findings of the in-house investigation, since employees who spoke out about him being dehydrated, underweight, and covered in bedsores only did so under the agreement that they would remain anonymous [http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2016-01-26/preliminary-autopsy-cites-head-injury-prison-homicide] out of fear of retaliation (which is a common practice applied by ranking officials).

This form of retaliating extends to rank making staff fail to report deadly uses of force on complying prisoners during routine cell extractions; the mentally ill being denied their meals and medication for days; and bad apples (under the direct authority of ranking officials and their co-workers) falsifying documents, making false statements, and sanctioning innocent prisoners to avoid getting sanctioned themselves.

To keep the public in the dark, in comes a TDJC spokesman to curb protest, which allows the practice to continue: “Ten correctional officers and eight ranking officers, including the major of correctional officers, were not adequately performing cell checks and searches or providing appropriate oversight to ensure that policies were being adhered to… The agency has taken corrective steps to include disciplinary action.” [http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2016-04-01/autopsy-inmate-was-starving-when-he-died]

The day Rodgers died, TDJC Director, Brad Livingston, and several other guards and medical staff at this prison had been sued by the families of two prisoners: Arcade Comeaux and Christopher Wooverton, who died several months apart in 2013. The cause of their deaths was the same: neglect by medical staff and guards. [http://rashidmod.com/?p=2128]

It’s obvious that Livingston realized the prison might be sued again and therefore handed down the mild sanctions to his 18 employees to make it seem like those responsible were weeded out and punished (not for Rodgers’ death though). Scapegoating bad apple techniques like that are nothing new.

Add this to the records that were falsified, and those who have no knowledge of how corrupt this prison is will easily be fooled into thinking that Rodgers’ death was solely by the hands of his cellmate.

During the days he was lying in his bunk unresponsive, staff were documenting that he’d been receiving all of his meals. The mental health and medical staff documented that he’d been getting checked daily and was fine, up to the point when he was found in a vegetable-like-state. If this were true, Rodgers would have been found (and possibly saved) well before his health had deteriorated to life threatening.

A staff writer for the Amarillo Globe News, Aaron Davis, published an article on April 1, 2016 that exposed how Rodgers was “starved” before he died. Then on April 5 (after TDJC countered the claim), he published another article riddled with TDJC’s fallacious statements, claiming Rodgers hadn’t starved before he died. In the latter account, TDJC used the fact that Rodgers’ commissary account had been used to purchase food, as a way to say he had food and must have starved himself [http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2016-04-05/tdjc-inmate-wasnt-starved].

This purchase doesn’t prove anything. In fact the commissary worker, Jessica Roach, who was responsible for delivering the items that were purchased with Rodgers’ ID card, abruptly quit when it was discovered that someone else may have received his snacks and an investigation would be launched to verify whether he really had received them.

To further stress my point, on December 11, 2015 I received commissary items from Roach that had been purchased for another prisoner. I tried to explain the mix-up but she seemed to be in a rush. “Just take it,” she stated while walking off. This proves that Roach has a history of delivering items to the wrong cells.

Just as mysterious as her departure, two wardens resigned once it was publicized that they were in the hot seat.

Since guards at this unit have a history of falsifying paperwork, lying about their foul acts, and covering up key details during a murder investigation that they themselves created, I decided to post an article online [http://rashidmod.com/?p=2076] once I saw that how Rodgers died was in the process of being covered up too.

Several months later I was contacted by Amarillo attorney Jesse Quackenbush, who is also representing the family and estate of Rodgers via civil litigation. He’s also helping us expose other misconduct by corrupt guards and medical staff. It is sad to know that what really happens in prison is completely shut-off and unknown to most of America.

This is why the prisoner who is willing to speak our, for himself and others, needs the support of others inside and outside of these death camps.