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COVID NUMBER NOT REASSURING… NEITHER ARE BOP DEATH NOTIFICATION PROTOCOLS

As of yesterday, the BOP was reporting 1,750 federal inmate COVID-19 cases in BOP and private prisons (up 6% from last week), 802 staff cases (up 9%), COVID still present in 118 out of 122 facilities, and one more death, for a total of 136. With 44% of all inmates tested, one out of four tests is still coming back positive.

Just as Wisconsin is now spiking in new COVID cases, FCI Oxford led BOP facilities as of Oct 16th with 409 inmate cases, followed by El Reno (108 cases), Petersburg Medium (89), Tallahassee (88), Big Spring (79), Pekin (74), Leavenworth (73) and Oklahoma City (61). Sixteen more BOP joints have between 10 and 48 cases.

Three days before, the BOP announced the death of a Big Springs inmate, and noted that the facility had 398 inmate COVID cases. Over 300 inmates apparently recovered in merely three days.

The family of Tommy Sisk, the Petersburg inmate who died of COVID October 4, blasted the BOP last week for not notifying them of his death. They found out that their loved one had died when a family friend called them last Tuesday to say he had seen the death reported in a newspaper. That was a full week after the BOP issued a press release about Tommy’s passing.

Tommy’s brother Wayne Sisk said a representative from FCI Petersburg told him his sister was listed and tried to call her. “What freed up that information,” he asked about the Oct 6 BOP press release, “but they couldn’t free up the information to tell his family and notify them before the newspaper. During the times that we live in now, with COVID and injustices and everything… tell me how much injustice is that?”

As of last weekend, the BOP still had not told the family the location of the body. “They should’ve contacted our family and showed us some respect. We don’t have our brother. We don’t have anything,” Sisk said. “We don’t have our family member.” Perhaps the BOP intends to have Mr. Sisk’s body serve the remainder of his sentence before burial.

The BOP told a Richmond TV station, ““While for privacy reasons we cannot speak about specific circumstances surrounding a particular inmate, we can tell you protocols were followed in the case you reference.”

Of that I have no doubt. Perhaps the protocols should be leavened with a little human decency.

San Angelo Live, Nearly Half of Big Spring Prison Inmates Have COVID-19 (Oct 13)

WFXR-TV, Brother of inmate who died of COVID-19 demands answers: ‘We found out from a news article’ (October 17, 2020)

– Thomas L. Root