La Tuna (NM) FCI

    On Tuesday, November 22, 2005, according to eyewitnesses who spoke with the Requester under Legal Privileges, a group of approximately two dozen U.S. citizen-inmates were attacked by over 200 alien inmates at Federal Correctional Institution ("FCI") La Tuna of Anthony, New Mexico.  According to first-hand accounts from La Tuna's South Patio that evening, the attacking aliens were gang-affiliated, and the mob's armorers distributed weapons like broom handles and rocks as the ambush uncoiled. 

     A Lieutenant entered the South Patio and ordered the attackers to stand down, according to first-hand reporters.  When the scores of attacking inmates refused to comply and instead approached, though, the Lieutenant reportedly withdrew and locked the Patio door behind him – a proper move to preserve "institutional security," and so prevent rioting inmates from taking other hostages, and the facility. 

     Inmate eyewitnesses report that Lieutenant was one of three guards overseeing La Tuna's 1,300-odd inmates when the attack began.  In a letter dated March 24, 2006, addressed to United States Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) (the only national legislator to heed our requests for investigation), the BOP's South-Central Regional Director Gerardo Maldonado, Junior, rejected that claim after reportedly reviewing some of the records we seek here (letter currently withheld for privilege reasons).

    The two dozen victims were rescued many minutes later, several suffering grave wounds.  Three men were transported to local hospitals, including one via Medi-Vac helicopter.  Though these inmates' identities are known to the Requester (but are here withheld in legal privilege, for fear of retaliation), SCRO Director Maldonado also disputes this information in his letter to Senator Bingaman by stating that "only one inmate required medical attention in a community hospital."  Regional Director Maldonado’s claim seems refuted by Anthony (Texas) Police Chief Ed Miranda, however, who told Las Cruces Sun-News wire reporters for a November 24 article that two inmates were transported to hospital in El Paso.

     However many inmates were taken to hospital, local media reported that local Anthony Police officers were called to secure La Tuna's Federal perimeter, while Federal prison staff and administrators quelled the violence.  Other terribly injured inmates reported remaining at La Tuna without medical care, including one reportedly dislocated or broken jaw suffered by the frenzy's worst victim.  Other inmate reports allege that sutures were later removed by a correctional officer who wore no surgical gloves and used the same pair of unsterilized scissors on every inmate standing in a line.

    According to La Tuna spokesman Israel Jacquez, however, there were only several minor injuries (Mr. Jacquez is currently believed to have been promoted to Associate Warden for a Federal prison in the Northwest).  BOP "Officials" cited by the Las Cruces Sun-News reported the violence to be fight between just a few inmates, during prisoner movement.  According to several citizen inmates nearly killed in that ambush, however, the ten-to-one odds were anything but a minor brawl, or their choice to fight.

    Importantly, this was not the first or last gang-related violence against citizen-inmates at La Tuna.  Neither was it the first time La Tuna's "Officials" simply refused any further comment and, so, prevented the public from knowing the very information we need to test the BOP's unverified claims that nothing is wrong but us.  With gang incidents occurring in September and November 2005, this author filed FOIA requests on December 1 and 14, 2005, then again on March 30, 2006.  Despite the FOIA’s requirements that the BOP respond within ten days (as regards a request for "Expedited Process"), the BOP finally offered its first two responses in separate letters postmarked (not dated) January 31 (to the 12/1 Request, No. 2006-02285, “La Tuna 1”) and February 10 (to the 12/14 Request, No. 2006-02289, “La Tuna 2”).  Those conclusory denials were appealed to, and then denied by, the Department of Justice, Office of Information and Privacy ("OIP"). 

    Like our Victorville request, the La Tuna requests have been denied fee waiver or expedited process.  The BOP – the agency whose records alone will demonstrate whether its own agents are speaking truth or lies – made its denials by seemingly ignoring pages of legal and factual support and instead simply paraphrasing the FOIA's text. 

     The La Tuna denials go further than did BOP West Regional Counsel Harlan Penn, however, in that the South-Central Region here claims a non-undercover prison guard's privacy interests outweigh our right to know that officer's (a) identity, and (b) law enforcement qualifications, even though guard identities are already known to the inmates (and their Outsiders) who pose the greatest threats to those guards.  The author respectfully submits that an anonymous Federal police force is un-American, and here objects that most prison guards should expect no more privacy about their names and occupations than any other non-undercover citizen or Government employee. The Requester accepts, of course, that some undercover Federal agents must remain unidentified for security reasons, both theirs and ours.  Such exceptions should be rare, though, not the rule.

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