April 15 2020
Bill Martin
from
www.justtalk.blog
Activists from three community organizations rallied in public on April 14
th to demand that local officials release as many persons as possible from the Broome County jail. Filling the parking lot outside the
Taste New York store where County Executive Jason Garnar was holding a press conference, members from Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier, Citizen Action, and Truth Pharm called on the County Executive Jason Garnar, Sheriff David Harder, and District Attorney Michael Korchak to prevent further COVID infection and death in the jail and across the county.
The county Sheriff responded by deploying a phalanx of officers and patrol cars, with multiple officers demanding protestors leave the site as it was “private property.” Protestors stood their ground, pointing out that this was state property, with the store still open to the public, and the parking lot and sidewalks unimpeded. The protest proceeded surrounded by officers and their vehicles.
The groups’ demands are straightforward, and have been repeated for months:
- Provide daily counts of tests, positives, quarantine and deaths in the jail
- Immediately release anyone at high risk for infection
- Release anyone held on non-violent charges
- Provide testing, sanitation supplies, medical treatment, and adequate nutrition
- Make phone/video calls free and end predatory commissary pricing
- Ensure those coming home have a discharge and treatment plan, including medical and housing resources that enable self-isolation
In reply County Executive Garnar stated, in a line taken from his Sheriff’s public statements: “I don’t have anything to do with it…. I can’t let people out of jail.” The county DA Korchak says the same. As one reporter pointed out at Garnar’s press conference, this is not the case in other counties where Sheriffs, DAs, and County Executives have all acted, individually and often together, to release persons with short sentences, those at high risk for infection and death due to medical conditions, and those incarcerated on technical parole violations like smoking weed or missing a parole meeting. Cases of these conditions were all recounted by family members at the rally.
When pressed on this at the press conference, Garnar said he couldn’t agree with the groups’ demand to “release
all prisoners.” This too was a blatant fabrication, as the longstanding list of demands shows –and as a reporter quickly pointed out.
Meanwhile COVID-19 continues its march through the jail, with the Sheriff recently reporting 11 officers and 11 incarcerated persons testing positive. This would be over 20% of existing cases in the county, where little testing has been done.
No one has been able to confirm these numbers, much less answer questions on how many tests in the jail have been done, how many persons have been discharged or hospitalized with the virus, and how many current or recently released persons have died (the Sheriff and local judges have the habit of releasing persons from the jail just prior to hospitalization and death as in the case of Rob Card). When asked for this information by reporters, Garnar said, as he has when asked for information other county COVID “hotspots” like local nursing homes: “I don’t know.”
The car rally is just one of recent protests pressing the County Executive, the District Attorney (who suffered a phone zap/call in on Monday) and the Sheriff, and the organizations promise to continue their work in the coming weeks.
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A sample of local media coverage may be found
here,
here, and
here.
