to whom it may concern

Today, I would like to take a moment to remember a friend, we called him "The Coffee Man".  he was old, he'd been locked for 23 years, but the way he dies was sad......

He told officers that he wanted to die, and the response to that was to take him into custody, and placed on suicide watch, but later that same night, he choked to death, The thing that bothers me is the fact that he was on suicide watch, he was supposed to be watched at all times, but he had been dead for two hours (at least) when they found him. He isn't the first one, it happens all the time. We had a guy collapse on the basketball court a few years ago, and because nothing was done right away, he died. The ranking officer on duty that day did not feel like dealing with a hurt inmate. When he was told that someone had collapsed, je said : “He'll be alright.” So, he waited almost 15 minutes before he went to investigate. By the time he took action, it was too late, he was already dead.

One of the biggest misconceptions about prison life is that everything is okay here, but IT'S NOT !!! People die all the time, the public just doesn't hear about it; I have been in cells with some of the meanest people one could ever hope to meet... I have found myself understanding were most of their anger comes from.

When you do wrong, you should be punished, I support that 110 %, but one should not be treated like an animal, or fed food that isn't fit for a dog. You do what you can until you just lose it...

But I will come back to those things at a later time. I just wanted to speak about Coffee Man. A lot of the things that happen within these walls ae senseless. I have often asked, but never received an answer – if a judicial system is okay with treating a mass of people as though they are not human, what is the point in keeping us alive ? I don't ask that for myself, I ask for “Speedy”, for “Dre”, for “Lil C”... For “The Coffee Man”. They all died and none of them had to.

No one's life loses it's importance, be it prisoner or homeless, a human life is worth something !!! You don't have to respect or like a person in order to appreciate his/her life. Sometimes I wake up and I feel like I am in a war zone, I feel like I am the enemy in my own homeland. Respect is hard to give when you know that your life is not valued. Being that I understand that, I am not surprised at how much men and women “inside” show no respect for the lives of the men and women who work here... just because one hold a noble job/position, does not mean that they are noble people I know, Speedy knows, Lil ' C knows, and Dre, knows, they found out the hard way.

Still they deserved to be acknowledged, because they lived. At the very least, every single human being, man, woman or child deserves that. And if it is not in us to want to do that, I would not feel too good about my status as a human bing.

REST IN PEACE COFFEE MAN !!! BLESSED JOURNEY...

Love and Respect

Tyree

January 6, 2011