A growing number of people incarcerated at the Sheridan Federal Correctional Institution sent urgent notes to their attorneys last week complaining of guards from other federal facilities coming in to toss their cells and indiscriminately beat people. Several sources complained of food taken, papers torn up and brutal beatings.
“We were extracted the other day by [Special Operation and Response Teams] from across the nation and told that ‘we did this’ and ‘this is your own damn fault,’” wrote one unnamed person in custody at the facility, whose account was one of several included in court documents filed by the federal public defender, Lisa Hay, on Sunday.
A number of the people who were allegedly targeted have previously filed lawsuits over conditions inside the facility, according to Hay’s latest filing.
“So we are being RETALIATED against for filing this petition against the prison for mistreatment and excessive Lockdowns?” the person wrote to Hay.
The accounts from inside the prison, which is located in Yamhill County, detail allegations of teams of prison staff wearing “stab-vests” (a kind of body armor) and shirts that read “Sheridan Disruption Unit,” engaging in unit-by-unit, cell-by-cell violence during the last two weeks in July.
Oregon’s federal public defender’s office filed an emergency