Note: This blog post is so significantly revised that it’s virtually a rewrite. Because of difficulty with Adobe (that likely everyone using it is experiencing), I had thought from garbled captioning appearing on my screen that a picture of one of the guards was a picture of the victim. My apologies for the confusion, and my endless gratitude to the activist who tipped me off to my error.
Complaint: Prison guards framed inmate, fudged evidence to cover up attack
RAIFORD, Fla. — Two prison guards invented a lie, fabricated evidence and framed an inmate for assault to cover up an attack on him while he was shackled and defenseless at Union Correctional Institution, state records obtained by First Coast News on Thursday allege.
The guards, corrections officer Justin Clemons and former corrections officer Cody Gabbard, 22, were arrested Wednesday on charges that they beat a 25-year-old inmate, who was wearing hand and leg restraints, and concocted a plot to pin the blame on him.
Clemons and Gabbard filed use of force and incident reports suggesting that inmate Nate Evans had spit on them during an escort June 9, and insisting that physical force was necessary to prevent any “further assault,” charging documents from the Florida Department of Corrections Office of the Inspector General state.
via Complaint: Prison guards framed inmate, fudged evidence to cover up attack.
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First Coast News (FCN) is a Gannett newspaper … as is USA Today and Florida Today, the former of which called a phony 1990’s all clear on frame-ups involving discredited dog handler John Preston, with the latter continuing the conflicted coverage in this century, as scores were framed in Brevard County, Florida Today’s turf.
It only took a couple of minutes to realize there was likely something wrong with the FCN article linked above … there seems to be a story to the pictures in that more than one is missing, including that of the victim, 25-year-old Nate Evans. Acquiring pictures from the FDoC’s database is easy.
The Florida Department of Corrections has an inmate information page on Nathaniel “Nate” Evans in its database (below). The information matches to FCN’s article in that he is 25-years-old, serving an eight-year prison sentence for robbery with a deadly weapon, and has been incarcerated since November 2010.
You can also see from the inmate information page that Evans is markedly underweight: 5’10” and 126 pounds. Emaciated inmates are nothing new to me. My blog post about Quintin Foust’s suspicious seizure death at Jefferson Correctional Institution noted that he was 5’11” and 126 pounds.
One of my blog posts about Richard Mair’s suicide at Dade Correctional Institution address malnourishment, too, via providing an approximately five year old picture as well as one that was current when Richard died. Richard was convicted on Florida Today’s turf, and was on my radar for many years for having provided incarcerated innocent Jeffrey Abramowsi with a sworn statement about having Brevard deputy Gary Harrell’s attempt to get him to swear falsely against Jeff. Jeff is one of the Brevard incarcerated innocents I advocate for.
Pictures certainly speak more to what’s actually happening in Florida prisons than the quote from Secretary Julie Jones that First Coast News published:
“The Department of Corrections is committed to taking firm and decisive action against those who engage in behaviors that threaten the safety of our inmates and the security of our institutions. I am confident in the abilities of the Office of Inspector General to aggressively identify and bring justice to those who discredit this Department through criminal and administrative misconduct.”
Will the Department of Justice and FBI stop stalling on horrific FDoC guard-on-inmate homicides and other hideousness – like withholding food and medicine – and finally initiate a takeover? It’s been over three years since corrections officers deliberately scalded mentally ill Darren to death, and FDoC employees still think – obviously – that they can get away with just about anything.
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