by biodun iginla, bbc news, new york
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NEW YORK -- The case of a mentally ill homeless veteran who died in a 100-degree Rikers Island jail cell starkly illustrates the dangers of extreme heat in lockups, an issue facing prisons across the nation as the inmate population gets older and more heavily medicated - and more at risk of overheating.
Inmate advocates point out that many prisoners exposed to high temperatures are unable to cool themselves - by taking a cold shower or by sitting in an air-conditioned room - in a way people living outside prison walls regularly do.
"This is not an issue of comfort and luxury," said David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project, who has litigated cases in Wisconsin and Arizona to provide appropriate cooling for inmates.
"Prisons have an obligation, which no one disputes, to provide conditions that, while they don't have to be comfortable, they can't be deadly," Fathi said. "But because of climate change, because of the changing population, heat is a deadly risk for many prisons and jails throughout the United States."
The February death of 56-year-old former Marine Jerome Murdough is a jarring lesson in what can happen when cells overheat, even though it differed from the classic inmate heat death in some significant ways: It happened in the winter and was due to malfunctioning heating equipment rather than scorching outside temperatures.
Officials haven't said exactly how Murdough died. A preliminary city Department of Correction probe found the medical examiner investigator believed he died of hyperthermia, noting that "the heat in his cell caused his body to shut down," according to court documents. One official who spoke on condition of anonymity described Murdough as having "basically baked to death."
Heatstroke causes a person's body temperature to increase rapidly - up to 106 degrees within 10 or 15 minutes - and can be fatal if not quickly treated. Other heat-related illnesses - heat exhaustion, rashes, fainting - are most likely to affect elderly and overweight people. Others particularly at risk include people with heart disease and asthma or those, like Murdough, who are taking psychotropic drugs.
Psychotropic medications can impair the body's ability to cool itself by sweating, experts say. That's a particular concern as the number of mentally ill inmates who take such drugs has risen steadily. According to Bureau of Justice Statistics from 2005, the most recent year available, more than half of all jail and state prison inmates had a mental health problem.
Nationally, the bureau doesn't track heat-related deaths in jails and prisons. But they do occur.
A report issued last month by the University of Texas School of Law's Human Rights Clinic found that at least 14 inmates have died from exposure to extreme heat since 2007 in state correctional facilities. And a federal judge ruled in April that a special monitor will be appointed to make sure the heat index doesn't top 88 degrees for death-row inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
The courts have likewise ruled that Arizona prisoners on psychotropic medication must be housed in a unit where the temperature is maintained at 85 degrees or below and Wisconsin was ordered to install air conditioning in a so-called Supermax state prison, Fathi said. Courts have also ruled on heat conditions for prisoners in cases brought in Illinois, Georgia and Delaware.
Some corrections officials have argued that upgrading decades-old facilities to be retrofitted with air-conditioning units is costly and complicated. They've also warned that air conditioning certain units, such as punitive segregation units, might encourage prisoners to act out in the hopes of landing a cooler bunk.
In New York City, a court-appointed monitor's expert has said the practice of circulating air in housing units for nearly 600 inmates under 23-hour lockdown behind solid-door cells isn't a sufficient means of cooling, according to court documents in a long-running lawsuit over heat-conditions on Rikers Island.
In court papers filed last month, inmates interviewed by The Legal Aid Society's lawyers during the summer of 2013 - when for seven straight days in July temperatures exceeded 90 degrees - said the oppressive heat made them feel dizzy and delusional and agitated their asthma and other health conditions.
"I feel like I'm dying in the cell," said inmate Freddie McGrier, according to court documents.
Nearly 800 New York City inmates are designated as heat sensitive by health staff and are supposed to be moved within hours to an air-conditioned unit when the outside temperature is above 85 degrees, the DOC says.
In a statement, a DOC spokesman said officials are improving their procedures, maintenance and staff performance to make sure jails are safe.
Alma Murdough, the mother of Jerome Murdough, announced Friday at a news conference that the family plans to file a $25 million wrongful death lawsuit.
"I know he was yelling for help and nobody ever came," she said.
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Biodun Iginla, BBC News
Saturday, May 17, 2014
INMATE DEATH IN HOT JAIL CELL HIGHLIGHTS NATIONAL ISSUE
Boko Haram's deadly insurgency: A legacy of attacks
Latest update : 2014-05-17
by Biodun Iginla, BBC News and France24, New York
The Boko Haram Islamist group has stolen headlines since kidnapping almost 300 schoolgirls in Chibook on April 14. But the group has been waging a bloody insurgency to establish an Islamic state in northern Nigeria for more than a decade.
Founded in the northeastern city of Maiduguri around 2002, Boko Haram aims to overthrow the Nigerian government and establish an Islamic state. The group is known by several different names, but since its early years Maiduguri residents have dubbed it "Boko Haram", which in the local Hausa language literally means, “Western education is forbidden”. Read more about the group's founding and its history in Boko Haram: Rocking the Nigerian Boat.
In 2010, five churches in Jos were struck by blasts while they were marking Christmas Eve, killing dozens.
A series of bomb attacks targeted churches in five Nigerian cities on Christmas Day 2011, leaving dozens dead or wounded in Jos, Kano, Madalla, Damaturu and Gadaka.
In 2012 the Nigerian government mistakenly believed it had killed Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau. Read more:The Boko Haram Terror Chief Who Came Back From the Dead.
The United Nations warned in 2012 that Boko Haram may be guilty of "crimes against humanity" in Nigeria. A little more than a week later the group claimed responsibility for a series of bomb attacks and gun battles that left 121 dead in Nigeria's second-largest city of Kano.
The violence prompted Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to call on Boko Haram to state its demands. Read more:Can Talking to Boko Haram Give Peace a Chance?
Although Boko Haram had long been suspected of having links to al Qaeda, Nigeria's security chief offered his first public confimation of the alliance in February 2012.
Boko Haram claimed responsibility later that month for a deadly attack on a church in the central city of Jos.
Weeks later the Nigeria's government announced that they were in "preliminary talks" with the Islamists.
Boko Haram was supected in an attack that killed four people in Kano in early April 2012, a day after at least 36 people were killed when a car bomb detonated near a church in the city of Kaduna on Easter Sunday.
The Red Cross said in June 2012 at least 80 people were killed in days of clashes in northern Nigeria between security forces and Boko Haram militants.
President Jonathan (pictured) said later that month that Boko Haram's attacks on churches were are an attempt to incite religious violence between Nigeria's Christians and Muslims.
Nigerian security forces killed 20 suspected Boko Haram militants in a shootout in the group's stronghold of Maiduguri, the capital of the Borno state.
The group claimed responsibility in a video for the February 2013 kidnapping of a French family in northern Cameroon. The family of seven was released two months later. Read more:French Family Kidnapped in Cameroon Describes Ordeal.
In late April of that year, at least 185 people were killed in clashes in the town of Baga while others fled into the scrublands surrounding the fishing community on Lake Chad.
President Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Nigeria's Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states on May 14 and launched a "massive" troop deployment against Boko Haram in northeast Nigeria a day later. At least 21 people were killed in subsequent days as more than 2,000 troops took part in a raid in areas of the Sambisa Game Reserve, a remote savannah of some 500 sq kms (200 sq miles) in Borno state where the Islamists had established bases.
US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Nigeria's military to use "discipline" in its offensive against the Islamists as Nigerian civilians fled areas targeted by air strikes.
A curfew was imposed in Borno state's capital of Maiduguri and supply routes into the city were blocked as Nigeria's military continued its sweeping campaign against the insurgents.
In June 2013 the United States offered a $7 million reward for Boko Haram leader Shekau.
Boko Haram was blamed for an attack on a school in Potiskum in northern Nigeria that left at least 29 dead in July. A day later Nigeria's northeastern Yobe state ordered the closure of all secondary schoolsuntil the new term begins in September.
August 13: Suspected Boko Haram militants wearing army fatigues gunned down 44 people praying at a mosque near Maiduguri while another 12 civilians died in an apparently simultaneous attack, security sources said.
August 27, 2013: Suspected Boko Haram militants left 24 people dead in twin attacks launched in revenge against vigilantes, who the military have encouraged to fight against the Islamists. Officials said the attackers were wearing military uniforms and the vigilantes followed them into the forest, believing them to be government soldiers.
August 31: At least 38 people were killed in weekend attacks by suspected Boko Haram militants, including 14 nomadic herders killed in an attack on a village in the northeastern state of Borno.
September 18: A military strike on a Boko Haram camp left some 150 Islamists and 16 soldiers dead, the army said.
September 22: Insurgents dressed as soldiers set up false checkpoints and gunned down travellers along a highway, killing at least 142, officials said. The militants also burned homes and buildings in the assault and left corpses littering the roadside.
September 29: Suspected Boko Haram members raided a college in northeastern Nigeria and shot dead some 40 students. Many of the boys were killed while they slept.
October 20: Boko Haram militants shot or hacked to death 19 motorists after blocking a highway in Nigeria's restive northeast.
October 25: The Nigerian army killed 74 suspected Boko Haram fighters in ground and air attacks on insurgent camps in restive Borno state.
November 13: The United States officially designated Boko Haram as a "terrorist organisation", making it illegal under US law to provide "material support" to the group. Read more:What's in a name? Boko Haram Gets a New Terror Title.
November 14: French priest Georges Vandenbeusch was kidnapped by Boko Haram from his northern Cameroon parish near the Nigerian border. Vandenbeusch was subsequently released in late December.
February 19, 2014: Suspected Boko Haram Islamists attacked Bama, a town in Nigeria's troubled northeast.
February 25: Boko Haram Islamists are suspected in the deaths of 43 people in an attack on secondary school students as they slept in the town of Buni Yadi in Yobe state.
February 27: French President François Hollande vows to help Nigeria battle Boko Haram's increasingly deadly insurgency while on a visit to Nigeria’s capital Abuja.
April 13: Boko Haram insurgents attacked Amchaka and nearby villages, hurling improvised explosive devices into homes and shooting residents as they tried to flee. At least 60 people were killed, local officials said.
April 14: At least 71 people were killed when an explosion tore through a busy commuter bus station at rush hour on the outskirts of Abuja.
April 14: Boko Haram gunmen stormed a school in Chibok and forced 276 schoolgirls – who are between 12 and 17 years old – onto a convoy of trucks. Officials said 52 have since escaped. Read More:Escaped Nigerian Schoolgirl Recounts 'Terrifying' Abduction.
May 5: Boko Haram leader Shekau threatened to sell the kidnapped girls into slavery in a 57-minute video released by the group.
May 12: Boko Haram released another video showing pictures of the girls, saying they will only be released in a prisoner exchange.
BOKO HARAM
TURKISH MINER WHO SURVIVED SAYS COMPANY TO BLAME
SAVASTEPE, Turkey -- Miner Erdal Bicak believes he knows why so many of his colleagues died in Turkey's worst mining disaster: company negligence.
And he knows one other thing - he's never going back down any mine again.
Bicak, 24, had just ended his shift Tuesday and was making his way to the surface when managers ordered him to retreat because of a problem in the Soma coal mine in western Turkey. Workers gathered in one area to hastily put on gas masks.
"The company is guilty," Bicak told The Associated Press, adding that managers had machines that measure methane gas levels. "The new gas levels had gotten too high and they didn't tell us in time."
The miner also said government safety inspectors never visited the lower reaches of the Soma mine and have no idea of how bad conditions get as workers trudge deeper underground.
Government and mining officials have insisted, however, that the disaster that killed 301 workers was not due to negligence and the mine was inspected regularly. Akin Celik, the Soma mine's operations manager, has said thick smoke from the underground fire killed many miners who had no gas masks. High levels of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been a problem for rescue workers as well.
Bicak, whose leg was badly injured and in a cast, recounted his miraculous escape late Friday while at a candle-lit vigil for Soma victims in the town square of nearby Savastepe.
Public anger has surged in the wake of the Soma coal mine inferno. Police used tear gas and water cannon Friday to disperse protesters in Soma who were demanding that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government resign. In Istanbul, police broke up a crowd who lit candles to honor the Soma victims.
On Saturday, police increased security in Soma to prevent new protests and detained lawyers who scuffled with police after objecting to identity checks, NTV television reported. The lawyers came to offer legal advice to the victims.
Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said crews located the bodies of the last two missing miners Saturday, raising the death toll to 301. He said 485 miners escaped or were rescued.
"Our efforts will be coming to an end," Yildiz said. "However, our friends will be scouring all corners (of the mine) once again" to confirm the final death toll.
Bicak said he ended up about a kilometer (.6 miles) underground with 150 people Tuesday afternoon when he heard an explosion. He said they were given old oxygen masks that he thought hadn't been checked in many years.
Bicak and a close friend tried to make their way to an exit, but the smoke was thick. The path was narrow and steep, with ceilings so low the miners couldn't stand up, making it difficult to leave quickly. He and his friend took turns slapping each other to stay conscious.
"I told my friend `I can't go on. Leave me here. I'm going to die,'" Bicak said. But his friend said to him, "`No, we're getting out of here.'"
Bicak eventually made it out of the mine with his friend - by then lapsing in and out of consciousness. He said he lost many friends and out of the 150 miners he was working with, only 15 made it out alive.
The Milliyet newspaper said Saturday it saw a preliminary report by a mine safety expert who went into the Soma mine that suggested smoldering coal caused the mine's roof to collapse. The report said the tunnel's support beams were made of wood, not metal, and there were not enough carbon monoxide sensors.
Labor Minister Faruk Celik said investigations have been launched by both prosecutors and officials but "there is no report that has emerged yet."
Bicak said the last inspection at the Soma mine was six months ago. He said mine managers know that government inspectors only visit the top 100 meters (yards) of the mine, so they just clean up that part and the inspectors never see the narrow, steep, cramped sections below.
Mine owners are tipped off up to a week before an inspection anyway, said Ozgur Ozel, an opposition lawmaker from the Soma region who has criticized the government for not adopting the International Labor Organization's convention on mine safety.
Bicak says his mining career is now over.
"I'm not going to be a miner anymore. God gave me a chance and now I'm done," he said.
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