[A] Vermonter jailed at a state facility in Pennsylvania says he was “brutally assaulted” by a guard, adding to the long list of prisoner complaints about treatment of inmates housed at a facility called Camp Hill.
Vermont Deputy Corrections Commissioner Mike Touchette confirmed Monday that his department was investigating the alleged attack at Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institute at Camp Hill, but he cast doubt on the veracity of the complaint.
Barry Kade, a Vermont lawyer and long-time prisoners’ rights advocate who stays in close touch with inmates, said in an email to VTDigger on Monday “that Vermont inmate Kyle Doyle was brutally assaulted by a PA DOC prison guard by the name of Matthews,” referring to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.
“This is the same guard who previously threatened to ‘knock [Doyle’s] head off,’ or something similar,” he said.
Touchette said he did not know the guard’s first name; Amy Worden, a spokesman for Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections, had not responded to an email seeking more information two hours after it was sent.
Kade’s email said there was a confrontation between Doyle and the guard in the prison cafeteria, and when Doyle returned to the housing unit he was told by the guard to enter a hallway.
“Another guard entered and stood by the doorway, while Matthews pounded on Doyle, who appeared to be seriously injured,” Kade wrote, adding that the hallway Doyle was told to enter was in a “surveillance camera blind spot.”
Doyle, now 24, was sentenced in 2014, with a maximum release date late this year, on several charges, including two of domestic assault and one each of unlawful mischief, giving false information to a police officer, violating an abuse prevention order, and violating conditions of release.
After Kade’s email was read to him, Touchette said, “You’ve got all the details I have. And yes, we are investigating.”
He first said there was “no evidence to suggest it’s credible,” adding that Doyle was “not seriously injured.” Touchette later said of the alleged attack, “It’s not that it’s not true. It’s just that we can’t substantiate it.”
Touchette said he had found Kade to be a reliable reporter of events in the past, but added, “He’s merely passing along information provided to him by inmates that are in Pennsylvania.”
Both Kade and the state Prisoner’s Rights Office, a division of the Defender General’s Office, have raised the alarm repeatedly in recent months over what they see as poor treatment of inmates at Camp Hill, which is located in central Pennsylvania just west of the capital Harrisburg.
Three Vermont inmates have died during or after stays at Camp Hill, where medical care has been described as seriously lacking. Another inmate was described as likely going blind from a treatable — but untreated — eye ailment.
In one case, 68-year-old Roger Brown, formerly of Brookline, died of stage four metastatic lung cancer that went undiagnosed until just days before his death, with prisoners’ rights advocates describing the lack of palliative care for him as tantamount to torture.
Vermont officials announced in February that they would seek to end their contractual relationship with Pennsylvania and look for other placements for the roughly 250 Vermonters housed at Camp Hill. The state [put out a request for proposals] in March and bids are due later this month.
Touchette said Monday that the contract with Pennsylvania calls for either party to it to give the other six months’ notice if it wishes to end the arrangement. He said Vermont had given that notice in mid-April, meaning it will need to find new housing for the inmates by October.
