2:00

We can't wait to see you soon. This

2:09

episode contains descriptions of violence. Please

2:12

use discretion. Altan

2:17

Sterling was murdered in

2:20

Baton Rouge, outside of

2:22

a convenience store by the police. This

2:25

is Andrea Armstrong. She's

2:27

a law professor at Loyola University in

2:29

New Orleans. On

2:32

July 5, 2016, Altan Sterling, a 37-year-old black man and father

2:35

of five, was

2:40

shot six times at close range

2:43

by Baton Rouge police officer

2:45

Blaine Soleimoni. The

2:47

police had been called to the convenience store after

2:50

someone called 911, claiming

2:52

a man selling CDs, wearing a red

2:54

shirt, had a gun. There

2:58

are multiple videos of the shooting. The

3:01

officers had Altan Sterling pinned to the ground when

3:03

they shot him. In

3:05

one of the officers' body camera videos, you

3:08

can hear them cursing at Altan Sterling and

3:11

continuing to curse at him even after

3:13

he's been shot. The

3:15

police officer called Altan Sterling

3:17

stupid. The

3:20

whole thing took less than 90 seconds.

3:24

Altan Sterling died on the scene with

3:27

gunshot wounds to his chest and his

3:29

back. According

3:32

to a state report, one

3:34

of the officers had found a gun in

3:36

Altan Sterling's pocket after he'd been

3:38

shoot. Graphic

3:40

video of the shooting, filmed by

3:42

bystanders, spread quickly, and

3:46

protesters began assembling at the convenience

3:48

store where Altan Sterling had been

3:50

killed. And

3:53

he kind of

3:56

catalyzed a movement, his

3:59

family. his friends,

4:03

they wanted accountability. They

4:06

wanted people to acknowledge what had happened to

4:08

him. And so

4:10

there was a series of protests in

4:13

Baton Rouge around that time

4:17

that was supporting those calls by the family. AMT.

4:20

In the days after the shooting, thousands

4:22

of people assembled to protest. Many

4:25

people were arrested. More

4:28

than 150 people were arrested for

4:30

blocking a main road in Baton

4:32

Rouge, Airline Highway. Andrea

4:36

Armstrong was there for some of

4:38

the protests, acting as a

4:40

legal observer. What is a

4:43

legal observer? AMT.

4:45

So a legal observer is part

4:47

of the National Lawyers

4:49

Guild project. And so it

4:51

is really a volunteer effort. It is lawyers

4:54

across the state who volunteer their

4:57

time after being trained in

4:59

kind of observing

5:01

the protests. And basically you're there

5:03

to document different

5:06

engagements, right? So if there

5:08

are in fact arrests, it is

5:10

getting badge numbers and names

5:13

for the arresting officers, as

5:15

well as information about

5:18

the person being arrested, including contact

5:20

information perhaps for a next of kin

5:23

or a relative in the offense that

5:25

they are detained and will need some

5:27

kind of bail or bond situation. You

5:31

are not there to interfere

5:35

or even to support a particular

5:37

side. You are

5:39

there to ensure that

5:42

the constitutional rights of protesters are

5:45

in fact respected during

5:47

that time. AMT. How did

5:49

the police respond to you as an observer?

5:53

AMT. I think there was definitely

5:55

some hostility in the sense

5:57

of, this is our turf. who

6:01

are you to tell us how to

6:03

do our jobs? But I

6:05

don't think that was universal.

6:07

I remember there

6:09

were a couple of protests

6:11

where I have, you know, observed, and

6:14

the officers, you know, would give me a

6:16

nod, and, you know, they would come over and

6:19

explain certain things that they were going to

6:21

do or about to do to

6:23

make sure that we kind of understood the

6:25

various pieces of things that were happening. And

6:29

how did the police react to the protesters? I

6:33

mean, it was, you know,

6:35

full-on SWAT gear and helmets

6:37

and, you

6:40

know, facing crowds of, you

6:42

know, young, old. There were children

6:44

in those crowds. There were, you know,

6:46

there were people with guitars. There were, like, people

6:49

were singing. And so

6:51

it was a stark contrast, I think, particularly

6:53

in the early days of the protests. Most

6:57

of the protesters who were arrested were

7:00

taken to the East Baton Rouge Parish

7:02

Prison. And

7:05

when the protesters

7:07

who had been arrested started

7:09

being released, it

7:11

was actually some of my

7:14

former students were doing some

7:16

of those bond

7:18

hearings and legal representation. And

7:21

they called me and they said, Armstrong, we're going

7:23

to need a memo. And I was

7:26

like, all right, like, what do you need a memo

7:28

on? And they're

7:30

like, well, we're getting all these reports of,

7:33

you know, people

7:35

not getting their medication and, you know,

7:38

people being freezing cold and being

7:40

denied phone calls, of, you know,

7:42

they're being packed into cells without

7:44

mattresses. You know, all

7:46

of these things, and we're kind of

7:48

struggling to understand what we're hearing. And so, you

7:50

know, what we'd like to do is just pass

7:52

on a lot of that stuff. And I think we're

7:55

going to have to do a lot of that. And I think we're going to

7:57

have to do a lot of that. She

8:00

described protesters held in jail being

8:02

pepper sprayed, being threatened, denied

8:05

water and toilet paper, being

8:08

strip searched in front of other people, as

8:11

many as 15 other people. Some

8:14

protesters who needed medical attention didn't

8:17

get it. The holding cells

8:19

were dirty, sometimes bloody. One

8:22

man described spending the night with 26 other people

8:24

in a 12 by 12 cell. And

8:29

so, you know,

8:31

thinking about what we were learning

8:33

was happening in the

8:35

East Baton Rouge Parish Jail, it made

8:38

it all the more clear that we needed to focus

8:40

there because of the scale of

8:43

the abuses that

8:45

were happening to people who were detained. And

8:49

when it turns out, we later found, which

8:51

is the sheer number of deaths that were occurring

8:53

in that jail. I'm

8:56

Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. We'll

9:03

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11:25

Offer terms applied. Andrea

11:33

Armstrong learned that between 2012 and 2016, 25

11:37

men at East Baton

11:40

Rouge Parish Prison had died. Two

11:43

of the men died by suicide. Most of the men

11:46

died from illness. Some

11:49

were denied medication, even for pre-existing conditions.

11:53

Others were denied care. Can

11:56

you tell me about some of the men who died

11:58

there during that period? Yeah.

12:02

It's, you know,

12:04

East Baton Rouge Parish Jail is—and it

12:07

is, in fact, a jail, not a prison.

12:09

It was—the fact that it is named as

12:11

a prison is an old kind of historical rabbit

12:14

hole that we don't have to go down today. But

12:16

it is designed to hold

12:19

people detained pre-trial, right?

12:22

So these are, by

12:24

and large, people who haven't been convicted

12:26

of a crime, and

12:28

they're just being held before their trial. And

12:32

in that facility, people like

12:34

David O'Quinn died.

12:37

David was an incredibly

12:39

talented artist who,

12:42

you know, also suffered from

12:45

mental health issues. During

12:47

his relatively brief

12:50

time at the jail, he

12:53

was held in restraints for an

12:55

extended amount of time. It

12:59

was so extended that, you know,

13:02

the cuts develop on

13:04

his wrists and his ankles from

13:06

the restraints that

13:08

those cuts became infected and

13:11

that when he was released from those restraints,

13:13

he could barely stand on his own. The

13:17

youngest person included in her report was

13:20

17-year-old Tyron Colbert. Other

13:23

people in the jail said he had been choked

13:26

by his cellmate, who was also 17 years old.

13:28

They were in

13:30

a fight over a blanket. No

13:32

staff intervened. Tyron

13:36

Colbert was found unresponsive in

13:38

his cell.

13:40

When Andrea Armstrong published her

13:42

findings on the deaths at

13:45

East Baton Rouge Parish Prison,

13:48

she decided to begin the report with

13:50

an in memoriam section, naming

13:52

the dead and listing their ages. For

13:56

some, there are photos and

13:59

also responses to the question, what

14:01

was something that made

14:03

them happy? Here are some of

14:06

the answers. David

14:08

O'Quinn, celebrating the Fourth of

14:10

July on the beach with family, walking

14:13

his dog Bogey. Paul

14:15

Cleveland, he loved to

14:17

cook and try new recipes. Tyrin

14:20

Colbert, it used

14:22

to make his day when his dad would take

14:24

him to work or take him fishing, even

14:27

if he didn't catch anything. Just taking

14:29

the ferry to Plaquemines Parish and being

14:31

with his dad made him happy. Tell

14:36

me about the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison.

14:40

Is it an old facility, a new facility? It's

14:43

a pretty old facility. I mean, it

14:46

is constructed in that

14:49

kind of old style with tears

14:51

with cells on either side, not

14:53

a lot of sunlight, meaning,

14:55

you know, these tear constructions.

14:57

There's a guard who's at the

14:59

very front of the tear, right?

15:02

And what that means is unless

15:04

that guard is constantly walking that

15:06

hallway, they can't see what happens in

15:08

the cells that are at the furthest end.

15:11

So there's a lack of visibility. The

15:14

facility itself is pretty old, but

15:17

what I have found is, sure,

15:20

the age of the facility matters, but

15:22

what matters more is

15:24

the staffing and the services that are

15:26

offered. Even in an old

15:28

building, you can

15:31

treat people humanely as

15:34

long as you're focused on what type of staffing

15:36

you have, the training that they have, and

15:39

the services that are available to incarcerated And

15:43

those are lacking. Absolutely, right? I mean, so,

15:46

you know, by and large, you

15:49

and I, for example, don't have a right to

15:51

health care. That includes mental

15:53

health care. But

15:56

what we see in jails

15:58

is, you know, You

16:01

could submit a sick call form and

16:03

maybe somebody would stop by Celside

16:05

and talk with you in 24-48 hours. But

16:09

we also know that if there's anything

16:12

more serious than a cold or

16:14

kind of a basic symptom, that

16:18

jails just aren't equipped to provide the type

16:20

of care that they're entitled to. And

16:23

it's not that they're entitled to it because they are

16:25

more deserving or more worthy than you or for me.

16:28

They are entitled to it because they

16:30

have no other option. They

16:33

aren't free to book a doctor's

16:35

appointment or to go to the

16:37

ER or go to an urgent

16:39

care. And because they are

16:42

so fully dependent, that

16:44

is why they have a right to the care. You've

16:48

said that these are our

16:51

jails and prisons.

16:53

What do you mean by that? Because

16:56

they are ours the same way the schools

16:58

are ours and the roads are ours

17:00

and the Department of Health belongs to

17:02

us, right? So in a democracy, we

17:06

as the residents get

17:08

to choose the shape and the form

17:10

of our government. With

17:13

our vote, we get to determine whether dollars

17:15

are sent to the Parks and Recreation

17:17

Department or whether they're sent to

17:20

the Road Works Department. And

17:24

so in that sense, these

17:27

agencies are ours. They

17:29

belong to us. And

17:31

the things that they do, they

17:33

do in our name and

17:36

with our dollars. And

17:39

prisons and jails are

17:41

just another type of government agency,

17:44

and yet they are treated completely

17:46

differently both by the law and

17:49

by the public as if they

17:52

shouldn't be subject to

17:54

our preferences and our

17:57

wishes as... the

18:00

residents of the city and of the state. Is

18:04

it true that Louisiana has the highest

18:06

per capita incarceration rate in the country?

18:08

I mean, listen, we have been in

18:10

the top five since the late 1980s.

18:15

Sometimes we play games and we're number two, you

18:17

know, and then we're back up at number one

18:19

and sometimes we're number three. But

18:23

we have been in the top five since the late 1980s.

18:26

We have also been in the top

18:28

five for violent crime since

18:31

the late 1980s. Which

18:34

for me just raises the question of whether

18:37

incarceration, the way that

18:39

we do it and how we do it, whether

18:41

it actually makes us safer. Andrea

18:49

Armstrong has said too

18:52

often the how and why a

18:54

person in prison dies is kept

18:56

secret from everyone, including

18:59

the person's family. In

19:04

2019, she started the incarceration

19:06

transparency project. She

19:09

wanted to identify and make public how

19:11

many people were dying behind bars in

19:14

Louisiana. The project

19:16

also documents conditions inside

19:19

the state's prisons and jails. What

19:22

Andrea Armstrong calls secretive

19:24

spaces of confinement. And

19:28

we do that through filing

19:31

public records requests with facilities across

19:33

the state to identify

19:35

who died, demographic

19:39

characteristics about them. And

19:41

then we analyze and try

19:43

and kind of understand, well,

19:45

who is it that's dying? Where are

19:48

they dying? Are there particular diseases? Are

19:50

there particular locations? And

19:53

then we also, for people who

19:55

have died in the New Orleans jail and now

19:58

we're working on the

20:00

East Baton Rouge Parish Jail

20:03

are there people who have

20:05

died there where their story has yet

20:07

to be told. And

20:10

so we're trying to find family

20:12

members, relatives, and we create these

20:14

memorials for those people. And

20:18

in making this show, we have

20:20

all kinds of people on. But sometimes people

20:22

write into us and say, you know,

20:26

that if we interview someone who is incarcerated, you

20:28

know, they may say, well, we're

20:30

too sympathetic to someone who has broken the law

20:33

and that we're wrong to turn our attention

20:35

to someone in prison or jail. There are

20:37

other stories out there. Do people say this

20:39

to you? Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Right? I mean, I

20:41

think they're like, well, why do you put

20:43

so much time and their attention to them?

20:46

And there's

20:49

so many reasons why. So

20:52

I do believe, and I think, you

20:54

know, far smarter and wiser people have

20:57

said this before me, but how

21:00

we treat the people

21:02

who are the most

21:04

despised among us is

21:07

in fact an indication of who

21:09

we are as a

21:11

society and as a people. I

21:15

mean, I think it is very

21:17

easy to be good

21:21

and moral and to live your values

21:23

when it is with somebody that you

21:25

think is quote unquote deserving. I

21:29

think it's a lot harder when

21:32

you think somebody doesn't deserve

21:34

the best of

21:36

society. And that's

21:38

really where I think the most interesting work is to

21:40

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Visit ebay.com for terms. On

24:29

November 5th, 1983, a 56-year-old man named Isidore Roseman

24:34

was working in his shop in Shreveport,

24:37

Louisiana. He was a jeweler

24:39

and a watchmaker who repaired

24:41

antique watches and clocks. According

24:45

to his nephew, Isidore Roseman opened

24:47

the back door and a

24:49

number of people rushed in and, quote,

24:52

knocked him down, broke his glasses,

24:55

and then put a gun to the back of his head and

24:57

pulled the trigger. Police

25:01

questioned a 34-year-old black man

25:03

named Glenn Ford. Glenn

25:05

Ford had been seen near the shop earlier

25:07

in the day and sometimes

25:10

did yard work for Isidore Roseman.

25:13

A few months later, a number of items

25:15

that had been in Roseman's store were found

25:17

in a pawn shop. A

25:20

handwriting analyst believed that the signature on

25:22

the pawn slips matched Glenn

25:24

Ford's handwriting. He

25:27

was arrested, along with three other men, and

25:30

charged with capital murder and conspiracy

25:32

to commit armed robbery. Glenn

25:35

Ford had two court-appointed

25:37

lawyers. Neither of

25:40

them had tried a criminal case before. It

25:43

was an all-white jury. And

25:45

they found Glenn Ford guilty after

25:47

deliberating for less than three hours.

25:51

He was sentenced to death. The

25:54

prosecution dropped all charges for

25:56

the three other defendants. Glenn

25:59

Ford. When

28:01

he got the result back of his first

28:03

physical, which happened, you

28:05

know, on the outside, and

28:07

he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and

28:10

he lived for 15 months

28:15

after his release from death row, and

28:18

in his opinion, death row still managed

28:20

to kill him. And

28:23

he didn't let that deter him. He

28:25

spent 15 months in

28:28

freedom. That meant that

28:30

we went to go eat barbecue. We

28:32

went kayaking. We went and

28:34

saw lots and lots of art because he

28:36

was a self-taught artist. He

28:39

reconnected, in particular,

28:41

with baby Glenn, his son, who

28:44

he adored. He

28:47

had 10 grandchildren that

28:49

he was very proud of. He

28:51

was able to reconnect with people

28:53

that he had loved before he

28:55

was sent away. And

28:58

he really just lived

29:02

every moment of those 15

29:04

months. And

29:06

it was an honor to be able to be with

29:08

him during that journey. Why

29:12

did he get care inside Angola? Well,

29:16

he was on death row. So the way

29:18

he describes it is the health care on

29:20

death row consisted of either

29:22

Tylenol or Thorazine, and

29:25

the conditions that he

29:27

had, those two medications wouldn't

29:29

do anything for. I

29:31

mean, he would

29:34

tell us stories about death row,

29:36

right? Some of them reaffirmed,

29:40

if that's the right word,

29:43

my belief in the humanity of

29:45

every single person, right? He would

29:48

talk about, on

29:50

the row, the ways in

29:52

which, even though they couldn't see each other, sometimes

29:55

they could hear each other, particularly right next door to

29:57

each other, and he would talk about...

30:00

the ways in which they kept each other's spirits up, talked

30:03

each other and supported each other through really

30:05

hard moments. And these

30:07

are supposed to be the quote unquote worst of

30:09

the worst, right? And yet here they are listening

30:13

to one another and reaffirming that

30:16

somebody cares about them. They were a

30:18

family on the row. That's

30:21

in fact how Glenn knew John

30:23

Thompson, who was here

30:25

in New Orleans and who really organized a

30:27

lot of the care for Glenn. John

30:31

Thompson has also unfortunately said he's been

30:33

14 years on death row and

30:35

had a really heart

30:38

attack. Likely also, right,

30:40

he has been so much time incarcerated that

30:45

he thinks that his heart problems are

30:48

also part and parcel of

30:50

the stress of

30:52

life on death row. Now

30:55

going back to the

30:58

stories that Glenn told me, he

31:00

told me also

31:02

about conditions. And

31:04

so I remember one time we were sitting there

31:07

and he was talking about like they

31:09

had a burn dump that was right outside

31:11

of his window at one point when death

31:14

row was situated there. These

31:17

practices where they would, he

31:19

called them, they would GI the tear and

31:21

some clean sewer pipes and

31:23

they were at opposite ends of the tear and

31:25

so they would have to open the pipes on one

31:27

end and flush it and wash it down the tear

31:29

and everybody would have to jump

31:31

up and grab their belongings. He

31:33

would tell me about chemicals

31:36

that they were given to

31:38

clean their cells that would make the pump bubble

31:41

on the wall but they weren't

31:43

given any masks or any gloves and just

31:46

talked about all of this stuff as if it

31:48

was totally normal. And

31:51

I'm sitting there listening going, this sounds like there

31:55

should be rules, right,

31:57

around. water

32:00

and air purity and smoke

32:04

inhalation and chemical pollutants

32:06

and it

32:08

turns out that prisons and

32:10

jails aren't really covered necessarily

32:13

by a lot of the rules that

32:15

govern you and me and so

32:17

Glenn was the one who taught me that lesson. Your

32:21

kids got to meet him. They met

32:23

him plenty. You know, my kids walk with

32:25

me in this work. You

32:27

know, one of the things that I think I

32:29

am most proud of is that they understand

32:32

that when people are coming home from prison

32:35

they haven't gotten a lot of hugs and

32:38

that hugs generally make

32:41

people feel better and so

32:45

one of the things that you

32:48

know we know out here you know

32:50

through science as well is that like human touch

32:53

is really important and

32:55

that being touch-deprived can

32:58

have an impact on mental health impact

33:00

and that is part of being

33:03

incarcerated is you know

33:05

the times when you are touched are

33:08

in so many cases in a punitive

33:10

or disciplinary way. Not everybody

33:13

gets contact visits and in

33:15

fact a lot of jails have stopped in-person

33:18

visitation completely. The

33:21

New Orleans jail for instance only offers

33:24

virtual visitation through a

33:26

kiosk and a screen.

33:30

So there's actually this area of the New Orleans

33:32

jail where if guys are on a certain tier

33:34

they can see out onto the street and

33:37

so you can drive by

33:39

that spot and you'll see people bringing their children so

33:42

that they can see their dad you know up

33:44

in the jail you know

33:46

newborn babies being helped you

33:49

know so that they can they can lay

33:51

eyes in person on their

33:53

own child. People

33:55

still find a way to connect. I

36:00

mean, I

36:02

will take it. No, I mean, listen. I

36:08

am a little black girl who grew up going to

36:10

public schools in New Orleans. There

36:13

has always been a

36:16

part of me as I

36:19

have ended up in some places I never would

36:21

have predicted in my life. And

36:23

there's always been a part of me that has said, am

36:26

I really supposed to be here? Am

36:29

I making the right choices? And

36:33

I think one of the freeing

36:35

aspects of this award is

36:38

I have asked myself that question a lot

36:40

less, and

36:43

I'm not mad about it. It

36:47

is and

36:49

feels freeing in

36:53

the affirmation that I am thinking in the

36:55

right direction. It doesn't mean I have all the

36:57

answers. But it does mean that

36:59

some of the questions I'm asking are the

37:01

right questions. What's

37:04

next for you? I mean,

37:06

I have applied for a sabbatical for

37:08

next year. One

37:11

of the things that I am really

37:13

interested in thinking more about is climate

37:15

change in particular as

37:17

it impacts incarcerated people. I think

37:20

it brings together a number of

37:22

the different strands of my research,

37:24

right? So I thought a lot

37:26

about health and about deaths and

37:29

labor behind bars. But

37:31

if we think about it

37:33

through the lens of climate change, it

37:36

brings those three different strands into focus

37:38

in a unique way. I

37:41

think we see things there that

37:43

we don't normally see when

37:45

we look at incarcerated people. And

37:48

in particular, I think it

37:50

shows the unique vulnerability of

37:53

incarcerated people. In

37:55

a way that isn't typical for us, and the

37:58

way we talk about incarceration. I

38:01

mean, I was at a prison in

38:03

New York. I'm not talking about

38:05

Louisiana, I'm talking about New York this summer. And

38:09

it was so stifling,

38:11

you know, and just

38:13

talking to the man I was

38:15

interviewing about what he does and

38:17

all the men he's around to deal with this

38:20

heat, you know, it's, and

38:22

that's in New York. I was in

38:24

a prison in New York in July and

38:27

no air conditioning. Guards

38:30

were miserable. And

38:33

the incarcerated people were also

38:35

miserable. And then they

38:37

just had these massive fans trying

38:39

to blow air down the tier.

38:41

And what happened was the noise

38:43

pollution, people couldn't hear themselves think,

38:45

right? And so you add this

38:47

level of aggravation and we have

38:50

other data that shows that like

38:52

violence and aggression increases

38:54

in hotter temperatures. They

38:56

don't have ice. They don't have water. You've

38:58

got medical staff running back

39:00

and forth between dehydration. It was

39:03

just a powder keg, right?

39:09

Nobody benefits from that. No

39:12

one. And

39:15

so I'm hoping that this work

39:17

on climate change can

39:19

help us see more clearly what

39:22

it is we do. When

39:25

you think about how we talked about incarceration 20

39:28

years ago, 25 years ago, do

39:31

you feel like the world has changed a lot since,

39:33

you know, maybe you were in college? You

39:36

know, what is really striking to me is

39:39

the ways in

39:41

which incarceration touches

39:43

so many people in

39:46

our everyday lives, right? So, you know,

39:49

in addition to the 1.9 million people who

39:53

are behind bars and all of their

39:55

friends and family members, we

39:57

also have half a million people at least. who

40:00

were in the same conditions for 12-hour shifts,

40:02

right? And

40:05

then there's 10 million jail admissions

40:08

every year in the jail, this

40:12

churn of people going in and coming

40:14

out. And

40:17

yet it isn't something that

40:20

we experience or express any

40:23

empathy towards or compassion. And

40:26

yet it impacts so many of us.

40:31

So that part is surprising to me, and

40:33

I think that as the numbers have

40:35

continued to rise, we have

40:37

started to see that

40:40

improve, right? I'm

40:42

not the only one doing this work. I'd like

40:44

to hope that we're

40:46

at an inflection point, that

40:49

we're at a turning point, and

40:51

we recognize that sometimes we create more harm

40:54

than we intend. Without

41:51

any ads. And you'll get bonus episodes

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with me and Criminal Co-creator Lauren

41:55

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and Instagram at Criminal Underscore Podcast.

42:06

We're also on YouTube

42:08

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42:12

is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

42:15

Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm

42:17

Phoebe Judge. Yes.

42:31

You got it. I

42:43

could also include some other phone panel there as

42:46

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