On May 1, 2020, when the ICE Detention center at the campus of the Bristol County (MA) House of Corrections erupted after the inmates had reached their tolerance limit for the cruelty of the Sheriff of Bristol County, Thomas Hodgson, the man who had attempted since Trump’s presidential inauguration to catch his eye, stood at a self called press conference to explain how, as the only adult present and the great man that he is, he had been able to fend off the attack on him, his deputies, and his unmuzzled dogs by those unreasonable people in his Detention Center who destroyed the place.
The narrative had been simple.
He wanted to give the inmates of his detention center a covid test but, rather than cooperate, they went crazy throwing things, attacking deputies, and destroying property.
The fault was on those ” Criminal Illegal Aliens”, the sheriff’s subliminally charged term for immigrants, who do not respect America, its laws. and its law enforcers.
He launched into a description of the rioting inmates and the calm and reasoned response of his crew. and declared that, although it would be submitted to those who would carry on the investigation he welcomed, but until the investigation the public would just have to accept the video existed, but we could not be seen.
He did, however, mention those Senators and Congressional Representatives he would not allow on any investigative panel, as if the subject of one can set the parameters.
He repeated his narrative at every opportunity always painting the inmates as the aggressors and he and his deputies the victims of their unreasonable behavior.
After a quiet, leakless seven-months long investigation involving inmates, House of Corrections staff, deputies, inmates, and at least one attorney who had been talking to his client on the phone when the riot began and heard most of it as his client relayed what was happening over the background noise until the sheriff, by his own admission, took the phone and hung it up.
The investigation also looked at the videos that the sheriff had been telling the public would show what had actually happened and would justify his actions.
It is one thing to claim that there is a tape that shows the details of an event that cannot be shown to the public in light of a possible investigation, it is another to claim that such a tape exists assuming that no one would ever see it so the stated contents will be assumed true.
The tape showed otherwise.
What was on the videos did not match the story the sheriff had been telling during those months of the investigation, the story that the sheriff hoped would become so accepted by the general public, he could use that acceptance to deflect his crimes by convincing the public, as he actually attempted, that this investigation was being done by bleeding heart, pro-Immigrant/anti-American, anti-trump, personal political enemies, who were out to destroy him.
Instead it showed
“Our investigation revealed that the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office violated the rights of detainees by using excessive force and by seriously risking their health and safety.”“In the end, so much pepper spray was used that two detainees were taken to the hospital with symptoms of 2 respiratory distress, a third required the administration of emergency chest compressions to be revived, and many detainees reported breathing difficulties in the days and weeks after the May 1 Incident. Many of the detainees also were not given adequate medical attention following exposures to pepper spray, nor were they provided with a timely and sufficient opportunity to decontaminate.”The report stated.
“The violations of the detainees’ civil rights included the use of excessive force disproportionate to what was warranted and acting with “deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm to the health of the detainees.
Showing up with the equipment as the sheriff and his deputies did for an incident that came as a surprise showed a calculated use of force by their showing up with a variety of weapons including flash bang grenades, pepper ball launchers, pepper spray canisters, and K-9s, among other tools, and this was all used on detainees who had “exhibited calm and nonviolent behavior for at least an hour before this operation.”
“The BCSO deployed these weapons both indiscriminately upon entry and also specifically against particular detainees who were not combative, assaultive, or otherwise actively resisting staff. Informing our conclusion that the BCSO’s use of force was excessive, we identified myriad violations of the BCSO’s policies and procedures, as well as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) National Detention Standards.”
“We are particularly troubled by the BCSO’s unlawful use of canines, lack of attempt to de-escalate the situation or otherwise avoid further conflict, and failure to warn the detainees, including those who may not have understood verbal directives because of language barriers, before using substantial force against them.”
The tapes also helped to determine that “riot” had started with the non-violent refusal of 10 detainees to take a Covid test when being told to gather their stuff implied it had been determined before the results of any test that they were being moved but not told where or when, and confusion was caused because the sheriff does not employ any professional translators fulltime, parttime, or as needed in a detention center housing immigrants, but instead uses untrained detainees as translators, so instructions, already viewed with suspicion, became more confusing.
Where did the money for a House of Corrections interpreter at a detention center for immigrants go?
It would appear that contrary to his claim that,
“The motto of the left-wing activist groups, abolish-ICE advocates, Prisoners’ Legal Services and plain anti-Trumpers has always been, and continues to be, ‘Don’t let the facts interfere with your political agenda,”
the sheriff has to accept he confused us with himself when it comes to facts.
His video evidence was not what he had represented it as.
In the past, it was the sheriff following Trump’s lead in his attempt to gain favor. He echoed Trump’s words, pushed Trump’s lies, attempted, and may again attempt to make Massachusetts a red state, say one thing in public to endear himself to the citizens while in the shadows works against them or uses them to promote himself, he turned in his church to Stephen Miller for being Christian in the real sense, and believes people accept whatever he says as the truth, assuming most won’t fact check and claiming those who do hate America and its people.
But it could be, now that the FBI has retrieved stolen national documents of various classified levels from Mar a Lago whose owner, resident, and our former president claimed he had totally cooperated with the federal government having previously handed all such documents over to it, Trump has to face the security camera tapes that will show if anyone moved a box of documents out of or into that room and when they did it.
It is as if they both, two birds of a feather, are in a bubble that does not connect the spoken word and verbal descriptions with the statements both made on audio and video recordings which clearly show the truth vs their filtered presentation of it.
The tape’s the thing to prick the conscience of the kings
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