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At the bottom of a federal prison located at the water's edge in Brooklyn, the sound is reflected in a polyrhythmic.
This is the sound of hundreds of men in freezing cells at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, a jail that was virtually without electricity and largely without heat for more than one year. week. With the prison partially locked, inmates were unable to use the phone to call their loved ones, but their hard-hitting strikes could be clearly heard by those who were outside and around the world.
The detainees divert everything they can – shoes, their fists – against any surface they encounter: the walls, windows and bars of the prison that holds them.
Sunday morning, when protesters unfurled a long paper banner across the street indicating that "you are heard, you are loved. The inmates got their approval.
When Catana Yehudah, whose brother, Jason Smith, is serving a prison sentence with a gun in prison, sang a song in a megaphone: "No heat, it's torture" – the inmates slammed louder. 19659004] Mrs. Yehudah, 50, called for calm. "Stop hitting for a second!" She shouted.
"If there is no heat," she cried, "knock on the windows!
The prisoners, almost invisible behind the windows, hammered louder and louder as the shooting filled the deserted high street.
At around 18:30, electricity is restored. But the problems with the heating system, which are not related to the power failure, remain and, even though some parts of the prison are heated, many cells are not.
The prisoners who hurt themselves complain are obviously not new. Every old prison movie has a scene where prisoners drag their goblets along the bars to make noise
At the Metropolitan Detention Center itself, there is a long tradition of loved ones in the street, Bright flashlights Vincent McCrudden, a former prison inmate, remembers the excitement of the prisoners to see people downstairs.
freezing, "said Mr. McCrudden, 57." They're stuck with their cellies. So it's good – it's amazing – for them to know that people are out there. "
But the pounding has resurfaced since Friday, when the Times revealed that most of the 1,600 prison inmates had been kept in solitary confinement in cells without electricity since an electric fire. January 27. When the outside temperatures fell to 2 degrees Celsius, many cells were virtually without heat.
"There is a knock on the door, it sounds like the sound of slave ships, that of solitary confinement," said Tamika Mallory, one of the organizers of protests that have been going on since Saturday. "Hitting is a symbol of distress and a scream of attention."
Sunday afternoon, a few hours before the re-establishment of the current, the demonstrations outside the prison became unruly A woman, Yvonne Morilla, 51, followed by other demonstrators, approached the door shouting: "This is my Son! You must let me go! "The protesters then entered the building and tried to bypass the security checkpoint.
They were arrested by a line of correctional officers inside the building who pushed them away with boots and apparently pepper. spray. A woman ran from the building waving her hand in front of her face and coughing.
No cases of arrest have been reported in the immediate aftermath. Attorneys at the Federal Defenders Office in New York City said the pepper spray was infiltrated into the visiting room where they were waiting to talk to customers, forcing them to leave the building. Federal prison authorities have not responded to questions regarding the use of a pepper spray.
There were also disturbances inside the detention center. People were injured in an altercation at the prison on Sunday, a person informed of the situation said but not allowed to speak in public. The fire department confirmed that three people had been taken to hospitals with minor injuries, but did not provide additional details.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo called on the Federal Ministry of Justice to determine whether the conditions in the prison violated the civil rights of the detainees.
"No one in New York should live in fear of dying from death alone in the dark" Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. "These allegations constitute a violation of human decency and dignity. They also raise questions about possible violations of the law.
Officials from the Federal Bureau of Prisons are scheduled to appear in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday for an orderly hearing by Judge Analisa Torres in response to what she called "disturbing living conditions." [19659004] As protesters gathered in front of the prison Sunday afternoon, a paper plane flew from the ground to the third floor and landed on the sidewalk.
There was a handwritten message on it: "Call my family to my wife, I'm fine. "With a phone number.
Once the current was restored, the inmates had an additional means of reporting their family to the outside world.
Lynette Griem received a call from her imprisoned husband, Tyquan Griem, about 10 minutes after the start of the lights burst.
"They just shot. the lights are on. Everything is back, "he said on the loudspeaker, who stood near the megaphone so the crowd could hear it. "You all did your job. I must thank you for real. "
Her 2-year-old daughter, Malaya, marveled at the sound of her father's voice resonating in the street.
" It's amazing to hear her voice, to know that he's fine, that he's fine now, "said Mrs. Griem.
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