'Female prisoner with mouth gagged' (Shutterstock)
A trans woman named Sandy Brown spent 66 days in solitary confinement at a Maryland detention facility, during which she was subjected to taunting and humiliation by the staff.
“They didn’t see me for the human being I am; they treated me like a circus act,” Brown said. “I understand how animals at the zoo feel now. They gawked, pointed, made fun of me, and tried to break my spirit. These were people I’d never met, people I’d never done anything to.”
Attorney Jer Welter told Think Progress that Brown’s hostile treatment by the Patuxent Institution — a mental health evaluation unit for Maryland inmates — violated protections guaranteed to inmates under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).
This was the first successful prosecution of a case, Welter said, for a trans inmate filing suit under PREA.
"It's a huge win," he said.
Brown obtained Welter's legal help through the FreeState Legal Project, an organization dedicated to providing legal assistance to low-income LGBT people.
The Associated Press reported that Brown was released from solitary after a humiliating, months-long ordeal. Patuxent is considered a short-term stay facility, but the penal system's reluctance to handle Brown as a female inmate meant that she was detained at the facility far longer than normal and kept away from other inmates.
“Ordinarily these evaluations take 30 days at most,” Welter told Think Progress. “Ms. Brown’s went much more quickly, but she remained there actually until she filed this complaint.”
Brown's complaint said that her mistreatment began from the moment she arrived at Patuxent:
When she was strip-searched upon arrival, a female officer searched the upper part of her body, then a male officer searched the lower part of her body.
She was held in administrative segregation solely because she is transgender.
Over the two months she spent confined as such, she was only allowed recreation once.
Patuxant employees repeatedly taunted and harassed her. Sergeant Dawn Halsey, in particular, referred to her as an “it,” told her that she was not a real woman, and that she should kill herself.
Correctional officers would stare in her cell to gawk and giggle at her, threaten her, and call her names, leaving her in tears.
On at least one occasion, officers pulled back a curtain to stare at her while she showered.
Welter said that abuse of inmates by corrections officials is expressly forbidden under PREA.
Administrative Law Judge Denise Oakes Shaffer ordered a list of changes at the Patuxent facility.
“Patuxent must promulgate comprehensive policies and institute mandatory training regarding transgender inmates, in compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act,” the judge ordered. “These policies are to include guidance regarding: strip search procedures for transgender inmates; housing determinations for transgender inmates; and appropriate interaction between correctional officers and transgender inmates.”
Brown's statement said that she hopes that these legal victories will give hope to other incarcerated trans women.
“To the other transgender and intersex women behind bars, don’t give up,” she said. “There is hope out there for us.”
Rebecca Earlbeck, also of FreeState, told the AP, "This ruling forces the entire state corrections system to adopt a clear policy for the treatment of transgender inmates regarding searches, housing and interaction with transgender inmates. Just as importantly, the ruling also requires mandatory staff training on these policies."
Mass killings are becoming more frequent. Yet there has been no significant gun legislation passed in response to these and other mass shootings. Why?
Monika McDermott: While there is consistently a majority in favor of restricting gun access a little bit more than the government currently does, usually that’s a slim majority – though that support tends to spike in the short term after events like the recent mass shootings.
We tend to find even gun owners are in support of restrictions like background checks for all gun sales, including at gun shows. So that’s one that everyone gets behind. The other one that gun-owning households get behind is they don’t mind law enforcement taking guns away from people who have been legally judged to be unstable or dangerous. Those are two restrictions on which you can get virtual unanimous support from the American public. But agreement on specific elements isn’t everything.
This isn’t something that people are clamoring for, and there are so many other things in the mix that people are much more concerned about right now, like the economy. Also, people are insecure about the federal budget deficit, and health care is still a perennial problem in this country. So those kinds of things top gun control legislation in terms of priorities for the public.
So you can’t just think about majority support for legislation; you have to think about priorities. People in office care what the priorities are. If someone’s not going to vote them out because of an issue, then they’re not going to do it.
The other issue is that you have just this different view of the gun situation in gun-owning households and non-gun-owning households. Nearly half of the public lives in a household with a gun. And those people tend to be significantly less worried than those in non-gun households that a mass shooting could happen in their community. They’re also unlikely to say that stricter gun laws would reduce the danger of mass shootings.
The people who don’t own guns think the opposite. They think guns are dangerous. They think if we restricted access, then mass shootings would be reduced. So you’ve got this bifurcation in the American public. And that also contributes to why Congress can’t or hasn’t done anything about gun control.
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut speaks on the Senate floor, asking his colleagues, ‘Why are you here if not to solve a problem as existential as this?’
How does public opinion relate to what Congress does or doesn’t do?
David Jones: People would, ideally, like to think that members of Congress are responding to public opinion. I think that is their main consideration when they’re making decisions about how to prioritize issues and how to vote on issues.
But we also have to consider: What is the meaning of a member’s “constituency”? We can talk about their geographic constituency – everyone living in their district, if they’re a House member, or in their state, if they’re a senator. But we could also talk about their electoral constituency, and that is all of the people who contributed the votes that put them into office.
And so if a congressmember’s motive is reelection, they want to hold on to the votes of that electoral constituency. It may be more important to them than representing everyone in their district equally.
In 2020, the most recent congressional election, among citizens who voted for a Republican House member, only 24% of those voters wanted to make it more difficult to buy a gun.
So if you’re looking at the opinions of your voters versus those of your entire geographic constituency, it’s your voters that matter most to you. And a party primary constituency may be even narrower and even less in favor of gun control. A member may have to run in a party primary first before they even get to the general election. Now what would be the most generous support for gun control right now in the U.S.? A bit above 60% of Americans. But not every member of Congress has that high a proportion of support for gun control in their district. Local lawmakers are not necessarily focused on national polling numbers.
You could probably get a majority now in the Senate of 50 Democrats plus, say, Susan Collins and some other Republican or two to support some form of gun control. But it wouldn’t pass the Senate. Why isn’t a majority enough to pass? The Senate filibuster – a tradition allowing a small group of Senators to hold up a final vote on a bill unless a three-fifths majority of Senators vote to stop them.
Monika McDermott: This is a very hot political topic these days. But people have to remember, that’s the way our system was designed.
David Jones: Protecting rights against the overbearing will of the majority is built into our constitutional system.
Do legislators also worry that sticking their neck out to vote for gun legislation might be for nothing if the Supreme Court is likely to strike down the law?
David Jones: The last time gun control passed in Congress was the 1994 assault weapons ban. Many of the legislators who voted for that bill ended up losing their seats in the election that year. Some Republicans who voted for it are on record saying that they were receiving threats of violence. So it’s not trivial, when considering legislation, to be weighing, “Yeah, we can pass this, but was it worth it to me if it gets overturned by the Supreme Court?”
Going back to the 1994 assault weapons ban: How did that manage to pass and how did it avoid a filibuster?
David Jones: It got rolled into a larger omnibus bill that was an anti-crime bill. And that managed to garner the support of some Republicans. There are creative ways of rolling together things that one party likes with things that the other party likes. Is that still possible? I’m not sure.
It sounds like what you are saying is that lawmakers are not necessarily driven by higher principle or a sense of humanitarianism, but rather cold, hard numbers and the idea of maintaining or getting power.
Monika McDermott: There are obvious trade-offs there. You can have high principles, but if your high principles serve only to make you a one-term officeholder, what good are you doing for the people who believe in those principles? At some point, you have to have a reality check that says if I can’t get reelected, then I can’t do anything to promote the things I really care about. You have to find a balance.
Wouldn’t that matter more to someone in the House, with a two-year horizon, than to someone in the Senate, with a six-year term?
David Jones: Absolutely. If you’re five years out from an election and people are mad at you now, some other issue will come up and you might be able to calm the tempers. But if you’re two years out, that reelection is definitely more of a pressing concern.
Some people are blaming the National Rifle Association for these killings. What do you see as the organization’s role in blocking gun restrictions by Congress?
Monika McDermott: From the public’s side, one of the important things the NRA does is speak directly to voters. The NRA publishes for their members ratings of congressional officeholders based on how much they do or do not support policies the NRA favors. These kinds of things can be used by voters as easy information shortcuts that help them navigate where a candidate stands on the issue when it’s time to vote. This gives them some credibility when they talk to lawmakers.
David Jones: The NRA as a lobby is an explanation that’s out there. But I’d caution that it’s a little too simplistic to say interest groups control everything in our society. I think it’s an intermingling of the factors that we’ve been talking about, plus interest groups.
So why does the NRA have power? I would argue: Much of their power is going to the member of Congress and showing them a chart and saying, “Look at the voters in your district. Most of them own guns. Most of them don’t want you to do this.” It’s not that their donations or their threatening looks or phone calls are doing it, it’s the fact that they have the membership and they can do this research and show the legislator what electoral danger they’ll be in if they cast this vote, because of the opinions of that legislator’s core constituents.
Interest groups can help to pump up enthusiasm and make their issue the most important one among members of their group. They’re not necessarily changing overall public support for an issue, but they’re making their most persuasive case to a legislator, given the opinions of crucial voters that live in a district, and that can sometimes tip an already delicate balance.
The heads of the two largest U.S. teachers' unions on Thursday roundly rejected renewed calls by Republican politicians—some of them funded by the firearms industry lobby—to arm educators following the massacre of more than 20 children and staff at a Texas elementary school.
"Teachers should be teaching, not acting as armed security guards," National Education Association (NEA) president Becky Pringle asserted in a statement.
"Our public schools should be the safest places for students and educators, yet the gunshots from a lone shooter armed with a military-grade weapon shattered the physical safety of the school community in Uvalde, Texas," she added. "The powerful gun lobby and their allies did not waste a second after the horrific killing of 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School to call for arming teachers."
"Bringing more guns into schools makes schools more dangerous and does nothing to shield our students and educators from gun violence," Pringle said. "We need fewer guns in schools, not more."
Pringle continued:
We need common-sense solutions now. Schools need more mental health professionals, not pistols; teachers need more resources, not revolvers. Arming teachers makes schools more dangerous and does nothing to protect students and their families when they go off to school, shop at the grocery store, attend church services, ride the subway, or simply walk down the streets of their neighborhoods. Those lawmakers pushing to arm teachers and fortify school buildings are simply trying to distract us from their failure to prevent another mass shooting.
"Educators and parents overwhelmingly reject the idea of arming school staff. Rather than arming educators with guns, we need to be giving them the tools needed to inspire their students," she said. "Rather than putting the responsibility on individual teachers, our elected leaders need to pass laws that protect children from gun violence and bring an end to senseless and preventable killings."
"Americans want the carnage to stop," Pringle added. "My message to Congress: What are you going to do?"
Polling has shown that teachers are overwhelmingly opposed to being armed in the classroom.
"I think that arming a bunch of people without the training or desire to shoot guns is a disaster in the making," explained one respondent to a 2019 survey of U.S. educators by California State University professor Lauren Willner that found 88% of teachers were opposed to being armed. "I worry about students getting their hands on guns, and I worry far more about gun accidents than about school shootings."
Echoing Pringle's stance, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said in a statement that "only in America do people go grocery shopping and get mowed down by a shooter with hate in his heart; only in this country are parents not assured that their kids will be safe at school."
"Gun violence is a cancer, and it's one that none of us should tolerate for one single moment longer," she added. "We have made a choice to let this continue, and we can make a choice to finally do something—do anything—to put a stop to this madness."
Texas’ top law enforcement official admitted Friday that police officers made key errors when responding to a shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
Police officers did not act sooner to stop the 18-year-old gunman because a supervising officer at the scene wanted to wait for backup and equipment, said Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety. By the time a specialized team of federal officers arrived and entered the school — they had to get keys from a janitor to open locked classroom doors — more than an hour had passed since the shooter arrived at the school, McCraw said.
That was a mistake, McCraw said at a Friday press conference.
"Of course it was not the right decision,” McCraw said. “It was the wrong decision."
“When it comes to an active shooter, you don't have to wait on tactical gear, plain and simple,” he said.
McCraw gave more details about the shooting Friday, revealing that the gunman entered the school through a back door that minutes before had been propped open by a teacher. He said a police officer employed by the school district responded to an initial 911 call about an armed man near the school but drove past the gunman and mistook a teacher for the shooter.
McCraw also detailed harrowing 911 calls by teachers and students trapped inside with the gunman, including one at 12:47 p.m. — more than an hour after the shooter entered the school — when a student begged the 911 operator: “Please send the police now.”
Weeks before the shooting, the gunman discussed his plans to buy a gun with others on Instagram, McCraw said.
Law enforcement officials have faced increasing questions in the days since the shooting about whether officers on the scene could have acted more quickly to stop the gunman. Videos circulated on social media show desperate parents begging officers to enter the school, and parents have reported being handcuffed and Tased by law enforcement officers when they implored officers to act or tried to retrieve their children.
For example, DPS officials initially said the 18-year-old gunman encountered a school district police officer when he arrived on school grounds — and gave conflicting accounts about whether the officer fired at the gunman.
On Thursday, the agency reversed course, saying that no campus police officer confronted the gunman when he stepped onto the premises.
Uvalde police received the first call around 11:20 a.m. Tuesday, when the gunman’s grandmother called 911 to report that he had shot her in the face at her home about two minutes from Robb Elementary. The shooter fled in his grandmother’s pickup truck and crashed it in a ditch near the school at 11:28 a.m.
McCraw said the gunman fired at two passersby on the street, then went to the school, where he fired shots at the building from outside before entering the building at 11:33 a.m. through the back door that a teacher had left propped open.
Once inside, the gunman entered a pair of connected classrooms — Rooms 111 and 112 — where he killed 19 children and two teachers and wounded 17 others. McCraw said the gunman fired more than 100 rounds at that point.
Local police officers arrived at the school and entered at 11:35 a.m., McCraw said, but fell back after two officers were shot and wounded by the gunman. Officers tried to negotiate with the shooter, officials have said, but the man “did not respond.”
McCraw said the commander on site at that point treated the situation as a “barricaded suspect” and thought children were no longer at risk, which he also called a mistake.
“There was plenty of officers [at the scene] to do what needed to be done,” McCraw said.
