Jun 22, 2020

Prince George’s County inmate recounts story of catching coronavirus in jail Jun 22, 2020 at 4:32 PM The Prince George’s County NAACP branch and other justice reform advocacy groups held a press conference Monday to share a prisoner’s story on how he contracted the coronavirus while in Prince George’s County jail. Michael Montgomery, who recently was bailed out of the Prince George’s County Detention Center, is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the jail for poor conditions and response to the coronavirus pandemic. Montgomery was bailed out of the detention center by Life After Release, an organization that also participated in the online Zoom call Monday. Advertisement “The COVID hit bad and they shut the jail down,” Montgomery said. “I contracted it from my roommate, and I let the nurses and guards know I had the symptoms. It was like nothing was done. My roommate was sick first and they took him to medical at least 3 times back and forth ... they didn’t take him out the cell until his temperature was over 100.” The NAACP was joined by Color of Change, Life After Release, Civil Rights Corps and Progressive Maryland. Advertisement In April, the Civil Rights Corp filed a lawsuit against Prince George’s County alleging the jail wasn’t following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regulations to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The lawsuit alleges prisoners have to pay for soap and “regularly wait a week or more for medical attention” that also costs money. The lawsuit also alleges symptomatic prisoners are “confined to filthy isolation cells where the walls are covered in feces, mucus and blood.” In May, a federal judge ordered the jail to begin testing more inmates, but that order was lifted Monday after a hearing in the case, said Mary Lou McDonough, director of Prince George’s County Department of Corrections. The jail has tested all inmates, staff and is testing anyone newly committed to the jail and isolating them for 14 days, McDonough said. The jail’s response kept the April outbreak from being worse, she said. “I am pleased with the decision, and I believe it was the right one to make,” McDonough said. “As we are allowed to present more evidence in this case, we will find that many of the claims from the plaintiffs are not realistic of what is happening in the jail” Larry Stafford, executive director of Progressive Maryland, called on county executive Angela Alsobrooks to step-up and fix the county jail. “The true mark of a public leader is how the most vulnerable are protected,” Stafford said on the Zoom call. “She needs to reign in these offices and they depend on her actions. Just like the issues within the county police department, our county executive has received notice after notice that action is required. This issue should have been addressed a long time ago. Today we urge the county executive to take action to protect people’s lives. We want her to live up to what she said at numerous protest marches.” A spokesperson within the Prince George’s County Executive’s office declined to comment. After Montgomery began showing symptoms and was up for testing, he said he was placed in a dirty isolation room with “feces, urine and old food” on the walls. When he finally got his results back as positive, he said all he could think about was “death.” Montgomery was later moved to a larger cell with other people that tested positive. Since being bailed out by the Life After Release program, Montgomery said he is still having breathing issues and went to a Washington D.C. hospital where he was diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia. It felt like being treated like an animal, Montgomery said. Latest Anne Arundel County