07:52 AM EST on Friday, January 16, 2009
By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement yesterday issued a report faulting staff at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility for denying medical care and legal access to a Wyatt detainee who died in custody last August, and for using force against him in violation of facility policy.
Related links
Extra: A 33-page report on ICE's Wyatt probe
ICE simultaneously canceled its contract to house detainees at Wyatt.
The report followed a months-long investigation into the death of Hiu Lui “Jason” Ng, a 33-year-old computer engineer from New York, of complications from advanced cancer. Ng also had a fractured spine. His lawyers have alleged that Ng’s constant pleas for medical help were ignored, and that Wyatt guards accused him of faking his illness.
Kelly A. Nantel, ICE press secretary in Washington, said, “We have no intention of putting anybody into Wyatt” from this point on, and that the agreement will officially terminate 60 days from today. Last month, ICE abruptly removed all 153 of its detainees from the Central Falls prison, as investigators arrived from Washington. The agency said it did so as a precautionary move.
The ICE Office of Professional Responsibility’s investigation “revealed a consistent lack of communication regarding Mr. Ng’s health-care needs between medical and security personnel at Wyatt,” an ICE statement said. And, it found “instances of non-compliance by Wyatt contract personnel” with ICE national detention standards “and multiple failures to adhere to the facility’s rules and policies.”
Last week, Wyatt announced that disciplinary action had been meted out against seven staff members ranging from reprimands to termination. The actions resulted from a separate, internal investigation at Wyatt that also found no Wyatt staff members were to blame “for the cause of Ng’s death,” which was from advanced liver cancer.
The ICE report began last Aug. 19, and involved interviews with 158 individuals at three detention facilities — in Vermont, Massachusetts and at Wyatt — where Ng had been held, as well as reviews of medical records, detainee files, facility policies and reports, video surveillance tapes and internal correspondence. Its findings are against the Wyatt facility.
It documents Ng’s deteriorating health in the 25 days he spent at Wyatt before he died on Aug. 6: first an all-over skin rash, then back pain that grew so acute it left him screaming and, eventually, unable to stand or walk. Ng also began to urinate and defecate on himself.
Numerous times throughout Ng’s stay at Wyatt, the report states, guards and medical staff reported Ng’s behavior was “non-compliant” and stated that he “refused” medications, visits with his lawyers and medical tests, when he was physically unable to comply with orders to stand or walk.
The report states that the use of force violations occurred on July 30 — the day Ng was transported from Wyatt to the ICE Detention and Removal Office in Hartford. It focuses on a videotape of that transport made by a hand-held camcorder, and on an unnamed captain (names are redacted in the report) who supervised that transport.
According to the report, “The camera was shut off and on a total of 13 times. The breaks in taping range from a few seconds to a few minutes.” In an affidavit, Warden Wayne Salisbury commented that the videotaping stopped after a “wink of the eye” from a captain.
“As is made clear from the videotape and reports of the July 30 incident, Wyatt officials took Mr. Ng by his upper extremities and dragged him from his cell … face forward, allowing his feet to drag on the ground.” It noted that Ng “continued to scream as he was being carried” into a waiting van.
Upon his return, according to the report, the tape shows Ng “being carried stomach-down by four WDF guards. One guard is holding each arm and leg. Mr. Ng has restraints on his hands and feet. The WDF guards place Mr. Ng on his bed face-down …”
A summary of an Aug.t 5 incident report that was prepared by an unnamed major and an associate warden cites numerous findings against the unnamed captain in charge of overseeing Ng’s move to and from Wyatt that day.
The findings, in part:
•Captain “failed to exercise good judgment in violating established policy” by directing and signaling the video operator “to turn off the video camera no less than 9 times.”
•Captain failed to utilize proper transport options (wheelchair and gurney), instead forcibly carrying and dragging Mr. Ng from the Health Services Unit to Receiving and Discharge.
•Captain exhibited conduct unbecoming a senior officer by telling Mr. Ng to stop whining and by calling him a “(expletive) idiot.”
•Captain’s lack of judgment and failure to adhere to established policy and procedures “subjected the facility to federal and civil lawsuits.”
Executive director Steven Brown of the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union called the report “a damning indictment of the Wyatt facility.” The ACLU is representing the Ng family in a planned civil suit.
“It documents a pattern of cruel, degrading and inhumane punishment inflicted on Mr. Ng. It also is very clear that by occurring at so many levels, this was not just a matter of a few bad apples,” said Brown. “There was — and possibly remains — a systemic problem at the facility in terms of the proper and humane treatment of detainees.”
Brown also said the report “cannot absolve ICE of its responsibility for the tragedy that happened. It shouldn’t take somebody’s death to finally prompt action on what is a serious and pervasive problem at a facility that ICE has ultimate responsibility for.”
Dante Bellini, Wyatt spokesman, said, “We are disappointed” with ICE’s decision to terminate the contract, and that officials will work to persuade the federal agency to reverse its decision.
“We maintain that we had nothing to do with the detainee’s death,” Bellini said. “As we indicated in our previous statement, we acknowledge the violations of policy and procedures by some staff.”
Bellini said that Wyatt has had a stellar record in handling prisoners since the facility opened 15 years ago. During that time, Wyatt handled 16,000 detainees, 2 of whom died, including Ng. The other detainee committed suicide several years ago, he said.
Central Falls Mayor Charles D. Moreau said that he was not surprised to learn of ICE’s decision to cancel the contract, and he remains angry with the way corrections officers and staff handled Ng’s care. But Moreau said he’s certain ICE will resume housing detainees this year. “It’s going to happen,” Moreau said. “It has to happen financially for the city.”
He said that he has replaced three members on the Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation board, and that the board will ensure that prisoners are handled properly in the future. The board will also press ICE to resume the contract, he said.
Jack McConnell, volunteer attorney for the RI ACLU, said, “ICE has continued its incredible insensitivity to immigrant detainees and, in particular, Jason Ng’s family by releasing its report on his death without notifying the family before doing so. It is consistent with the insensitivity they showed Jason during his lifetime and the thousand of other immigrant detainees.”
—With reports from W. Zachary MalinowskiKey failings
?According to an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, officers at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility:
•“Constructively denied [Hiu Lui Ng] access to a medical appointment” by not allowing him the proper use of a wheelchair.
•Denied Ng access to legal counsel by not allowing him proper use of a wheelchair.
•Violated the agency’s use-of-force policies.
kziner@projo.com
