The Clipboard: Justice is not served at Brooklyn's 'Abu Ghraib'

From an article¹:

When Muslim immigrants were swept off the streets of New York after the 9/11 terrorist attack and brought to the federal prison on the Brooklyn waterfront, the first sight they saw was a T-shirt imprinted with an American flag and the words, "These colors don't run."

The T-shirt, taped to a wall, was smudged with blood because the detainees were evidently slammed into it as they were welcomed into federal custody. From then on, guards routinely knocked prisoners' heads into the walls at the Metropolitan Detention Center, according to a report by the Justice Department's inspector general. When the inspector general sent investigators, staff members at the prison claimed that prisoners' heads never even touched the walls and denied that the flag T-shirt was taped to the wall.

But there was one problem: "Numerous videotapes showing that staff members routinely pressed detainees into walls, regularly instructed detainees to place their heads against walls, and directed the detainees to face the T-shirt prominently displayed for months," the inspector general reported last December. The dozens of detainees - who were never charged with crimes and whose only offense was overstaying visas - were credible, the report found. Many of the guards weren't.

If the internal report and the violence exhibited on these videotapes were not enough to stir high-level Justice Department officials to prosecute the guards, then the specter of their own employees desecrating the flag on company time ought to have goaded them into it. But when the inspector general brought his findings to the Justice Department's civil rights division and U.S. Attorney Roslyn Mauskopf in Brooklyn, they declined to press charges.

A court case earlier this month showed that the decision not to prosecute the lesser violence at the Brooklyn prison sent the wrong message to military personnel involved in the embarrassing torture scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Sgt. Gary Pittman, the Marine who was convicted Sept. 2 of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, had been a guard at the Brooklyn prison. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, a fellow Marine testified during the recent trial that when he confronted Pittman about kneeing and kicking two Iraqi prisoners, Pittman responded that the inmates needed to be treated the same way as prisoners in New York.

Although the Brooklyn prison abuse differs in many respects from what occurred at Abu Ghraib, there is a common thread: Photos confirm both. There is also a key difference: Videotapes of the abuse in Brooklyn remain secret, at the Justice Department's insistence. (link)

What, did you think Abu Ghuraib happened out of nowhere?

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Complete text of the article, Justice is not served at Brooklyn's 'Abu Ghraib', by Paul Moses

When Muslim immigrants were swept off the streets of New York after the 9/11 terrorist attack and brought to the federal prison on the Brooklyn waterfront, the first sight they saw was a T-shirt imprinted with an American flag and the words, "These colors don't run."

The T-shirt, taped to a wall, was smudged with blood because the detainees were evidently slammed into it as they were welcomed into federal custody. From then on, guards routinely knocked prisoners' heads into the walls at the Metropolitan Detention Center, according to a report by the Justice Department's inspector general. When the inspector general sent investigators, staff members at the prison claimed that prisoners' heads never even touched the walls and denied that the flag T-shirt was taped to the wall.

But there was one problem: "Numerous videotapes showing that staff members routinely pressed detainees into walls, regularly instructed detainees to place their heads against walls, and directed the detainees to face the T-shirt prominently displayed for months," the inspector general reported last December. The dozens of detainees - who were never charged with crimes and whose only offense was overstaying visas - were credible, the report found. Many of the guards weren't.

If the internal report and the violence exhibited on these videotapes were not enough to stir high-level Justice Department officials to prosecute the guards, then the specter of their own employees desecrating the flag on company time ought to have goaded them into it. But when the inspector general brought his findings to the Justice Department's civil rights division and U.S. Attorney Roslyn Mauskopf in Brooklyn, they declined to press charges.

A court case earlier this month showed that the decision not to prosecute the lesser violence at the Brooklyn prison sent the wrong message to military personnel involved in the embarrassing torture scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Sgt. Gary Pittman, the Marine who was convicted Sept. 2 of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, had been a guard at the Brooklyn prison. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, a fellow Marine testified during the recent trial that when he confronted Pittman about kneeing and kicking two Iraqi prisoners, Pittman responded that the inmates needed to be treated the same way as prisoners in New York.

Although the Brooklyn prison abuse differs in many respects from what occurred at Abu Ghraib, there is a common thread: Photos confirm both. There is also a key difference: Videotapes of the abuse in Brooklyn remain secret, at the Justice Department's insistence.

Last month, a federal magistrate judge in Brooklyn ordered the Justice Department to turn the videotapes over to the detainees' lawyer, Nancy Chang of the Center for Constitutional Rights, for use in a civil suit. But the tapes are still being kept secret from the public under terms of a restrictive court order the Justice Department has insisted upon.

This is the same sort of protective order that kept the public from knowing for so long about serial sex abusers in the priesthood. Now, the beneficiaries are Justice Department officials who want to keep Americans from seeing just how poor a job they are doing of protecting civil liberties.

During the inspector general's probe, prison officials in Brooklyn repeatedly told the investigators that the videotapes - which were made to protect prisoners from the guards but which still showed a portion of the abuse - no longer existed. The investigators later chanced on scores of tapes made by prison staff members, sometimes depicting those who had denied knowledge of assaults in the act. As the inspector general noted, obviously the abuse was worse when the camera was off.

Even so, the Justice Department has yet to hold its own employees to the same standard of truth it has required of Martha Stewart, who was convicted of lying to federal investigators.

One reason given for the decision not to pursue charges is that the detainees preferred to be deported rather than wait in federal custody to testify. After what they were put through, it's hard to imagine they'd voluntarily spend an extra minute in a federal prison.

In any case, their lawyer says they are now willing to return to testify.

Dan Dunne, spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said the agency is continuing to build a disciplinary case against the guards and that it's possible it could again be referred to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.

But it's time for these videotapes to be made public, bloodied flag and all. Then it could truly be said, "These colors don't run" - from the truth.

reference=http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpmos213979580sep21,0,1534888.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines